Cosmic coincidence excites N.M. experts

SOCORRO (KRQE) - New Mexico researchers were already preparing to track a close-flying asteroid Friday when a surprise meteor burst over a Russian city that morning.

Researchers say it is nothing but a "cosmic coincidence" that both events happened on the same day.

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Researchers have been getting ready for the asteroid set to zip by about 17,000 miles from Earth for about a year.  However, they hadn't seen any signs of Friday morning's meteor until it exploded over Russia, sending many to the hospital with injuries.

It looked like a ball of fire as the meteor--estimated to be 49 feet in diameter and weighing 7,000 tons--burst when it hit the Earth's atmosphere.

The blast over Russia generated a shockwave that damaged thousands of buildings, shattering glass.  Reports indicate at least a thousand people needed medical attention for injuries.

“The one over Russia was a surprise,” says Dr. Eileen Ryan, director of the 2.4-meter telescope at Magdalena Ridge Observatory above Socorro.

New Mexico Tech researchers work with NASA to look for objects coming close to the Earth, but Ryan said this meteor was much smaller and came in much lower than objects they are normally focused on.

“There are only a handful of telescopes looking at the night sky," she said.  "They look at the most typical trajectories for objects coming in, so this was a little unusual, and it slipped through the detection system."

While that went undetected, researchers were already ramping up for Friday and Saturday when, Ryan says, a close-flying asteroid will be visible from the 2.4 meter telescope at the Magdalena Ridge Observatory.

“We are hoping to get how fast the object is spinning on its axis when it passes close to Earth,” Ryan said.

At about noon Friday, it was closest to the Earth, 14 times closer to us than the moon, but it won't hit us.  Even the meteor over Russia was so small that it burst before hitting the Earth's surface.

“What we can assure people is that we are closely watching all the very large objects that could actually hit the Earth and cause damage," Ryan added.

She said Saturday will be a better day to look at the asteroid from the telescope because it is so close Friday night that it's almost too bright to get the data they need.

The asteroid flew the closest to the earth over Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia Friday afternoon, but it will still be close to Earth for the next several days.