Meteor Strike

Gr 9 Up—The February 2013 explosion and crash of a 7,000 ton asteroid to the ground near the Ural Mountains in Russia is covered in this fascinating production. The crash caused property damage and injuries in the city of Chelyabinsk. An international team of scientists rushed to collect data from the historic event, which was of a magnitude comparable to a similar event that occurred in 1908 in Tunguska, Siberia. Cell phone cameras, YouTube uploads, and digital car dashboard cameras filmed the meteor explosion. Using mathematical formulas, the scientists were able to calculate the speed, trajectory, and size of the asteroid. They hope that this information will be able to help detect future asteroid collisions. The video has good sound and picture quality and utilizes computer animation to illustrate the math principles and to reconstruct the event. Sure to lead to interesting classroom discussions.—Ryan Henry, Daviess County Public Library, Owensboro, KY