I'm impressed by some those people's quick reflexes in the CCTV footage. Finely honed survival instincts over there in Russia.

Here's an enhansed feed from NASA TV 2 of the asteroid fly by:

http://www.oldsoftware.com/softimg7/atar…

With cameras becoming ubiquitous in our lifetimes, we've witnessed so very much of the dynamic nature of Earth and it's place in the universe. It truly is amazing to see and to know this has happened countless times over vast eons.

Had this happened about 30 years ago, there might have been nuclear war...

People weren't filming the smoke trail left by the meteor, they were filming a really strange looking con-trail in the sky before the meteor struck . Chem trail, perhaps?

@5 No, that's the meteor trail. The large "boom" (and subsequent smaller ones) are the shock waves produced by the meteor as it passed through our atmosphere at several times the speed of sound. Just like you see lighting before you hear it, the smoke trail from the meteor burning up was visible well before the the sound it produced reached the earth.

Note to self: Big Bright Flash? Step away from the glass, duck and cover.

Um, aren't there satellites or someone watching so we have warning as to when AN ASTEROID MIGHT HIT THE EARTH?
& then blow it up before it actually does? Or is that just in the movies? Was there any warning?

@9 We can't afford it. NASA costs tax payer dollars.

I'm waiting for the inevitable "Chelyabinsk Truth Movement" by crackpots who don't understand science and think it was a missile or some bullshit.

@9 - If (and that's a BIG "if") a watching device (satellite, Earth-based telescope etc.) was looking in just the right spot at the just the right time it *might* be able to detect a 10 meter wide asteroidal object a day in advance, perhaps two. Twice that size buys you a couple of weeks, and 10 times that size buys you a couple of years (as evidenced by today's asteroid fly-by which has been tracked for years). 10 meters of bolide can cause significant damage to the area of impact, but today's technology doesn't give us much warning. Sleep well tonight. It could happen any time...

@10: Gee whiz, giving NASA an entire cent of my yearly taxes would put an awful strain on my budget... Better to give that half-penny to the military instead, or to further tax giveaways for corporations. They're clearly in more dire need. NASA already has enough money, right?

(I assume you're being facetious, but I'd like to take the opportunity to make the point.)

WTF does Al Jazeera mean by "turned the day into night"? That makes no sense.

Paul, have you watched this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7mLUIDGq…

also, GUYS, it's generally referred to as a "vapor trail" since whatever type of ice the meteor likely contained sublimated in the atmosphere. and the larger meteor that buzzed us hasn't been tracked for years; it was only discovered last year. hence the name "2012 DA14". #knowitall