Local Astronomers Say Russia Meteor and Todays Asteroid Are Unrelated
By: Meredith Hillgartner
Updated: February 15, 2013
"It's a nice close fly-by but no there is no danger," Clark said.
Dr. Maurice Clark an astronomy professor from Texas Tech, said Lubbock does not have to worry about an asteroid hitting the South Plains anytime soon.
"We get one about this size passing between us and the moon each month roughly," Clark said. "The big hype about this one is it is a very close one and yes it is getting closer than some of the satellites."
Clark is talking about the asteroid that passed within 17,000 miles of earth day.
"It's great from a scientific point of view," Clark said. "It's close we can get a lot of observations of it."
While the planet is safe from today's asteroid, about 1,000 people were hurt when a much smaller space rock, a meteor, exploded this morning above Russia.
Clark said the asteroid and the meteor are unrelated.
"We can see the trail is coming from the northeast towards the southwest," Clark said. "Well the asteroid is coming up from the south, so they are on totally different directions, so they are totally unrelated."
Lubbock had it's own brush with a meteor about a decade ago- when fans caught it raining down while enjoying a Friday afternoon football game in October of 2000.
While dangerous meteor strikes are rare-Clark said it happens more than you might think.
"These things do happen," Clark said. "It's just mostly they are out over oceans or in unpopulated areas. This one over Russia unfortunately has happened over a fairly large city and a lot of people have got hurt."
And it there is a serious threat, Clark said we will know.
NASA has a space program to monitor the skies for much bigger objects heading our way.
