Source for the document on left: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration
In addition, after a close fly-by of the asteroid 17,000 miles from Earth on Friday morning and the devastating ten-ton meteor that landed in Russia, another large meteor lit up the San Francisco Bay Area Friday night. Observers reported seeing a blue flash as the meteor was streaking west around 8.00pm Friday night. Terrified residents reported sightings throughout the entire Bay Area—all the way from Santa Clara to Fairfield and the Central Valley cities of Fresno and Stockton.
Jonathan Braidman, an astronomer with the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, said that it appears that the three astronomical events seen Friday are totally unrelated.
The meteor flashing across the Bay Area seemed to be moving in different trajectories from the evidence he’s seen, indicating they are from different points of origin, Braidman said.
Le’s hope Braidman is correct.
In Cuba on Tuesday, residents reported seeing a bright light in the sky and a loud explosion that shook windows and walls, similar to what was observed in Russia. So far, there are no reports of any injuries or damage in Cuba.
Light from Cuba’s meteor was described the light as “bigger than the sun.” One observer said, “On Tuesday we left home to fish around five in the afternoon, and around 8:00 we saw a light in the heavens and then a big ball of fire, bigger than the sun.”
Homes were completely shaken by the explosion. One Cuban resident stated, “I had never heard such a strange thing.”
The meteor that crashed into Russia at 33,000 miles per hour weighed ten tons and had the force of 20 Hiroshima atom bombs.
Nasa estimated that large asteroids such as the 2012 DA 14, which lit up Russia, fly close to Earth every 40 years on average while only hitting the planet once every 1,200 years.
How can these three extremely rare events be totally unrelated? Is there now a cloud of asteroids currently flowing by Earth with some colliding with our planet?
Today’s asteroids are remnants of what was once, itself, a planet in our solar system. The remains of this planet are in what is termed the “Asteroid Belt.” This cloud of asteroids orbits between Mars and Jupiter, where the unfortunate planet was once located. Unfortunately, some space rocks stray out of the main Asteroid Belt and head towards Earth.
So what could have destroyed the planet that is now the Asteroid Belt?
The destruction of this planet, which is in our solar system, could have been caused by an extrasolar asteroid from another far-off solar system.
In 2005, the Spitzer Space Telescope detected a debris disk in the HD 69830 solar system indicating the presence of an asteroid belt twenty times more massive than that in our own solar system. There may be extrasolar asteroids of near planetary dimensions—too big for NASA to destroy with even a hydrogen bomb.
The extinction of the dinosaurs 65.5 million years ago was caused by a massive meteor that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatan peninsula. The 7.5-mile-wide asteroid released a billion times more energy than the Hiroshima atom bomb.
Stay tuned…