Fox Valley -
The meteorite strike and the asteroid passing so close to earth are the story that have people talking. Action 2 News learned that the events are particularly exciting for those who study outer space.
Students in a UW-Oshkosh astronomy class were on the edge of their seats as they watched video of the meteor that lit up skies over Russia. The live images of the "DA-14" asteroid that flew by earth around 1:30 this afternoon.
They say their experience is surreal to learn about these two events all in the same day.
"I think it's exciting, it's scary, you know, it's human nature to be afraid of the unknown," Graham Sparks, UW-Oshkosh freshman.
"I'm thinking a football field coming at me from the air is not a small deal," Caitlin Delwiche said, UW-Oshkosh junior said.
Experts at the Barlow Planetarium in Menasha were also monitoring DA-14 as it came close to satellites orbiting the earth.
Alan Peche says an event like this happens once about every forty years.
"This has never happened before in modern history where we actually knew of an object coming in and coming within our geo-stationary satellite ring," he said.
However, with DA-14's speed and distance from us, Peche says it's difficult to actually see it from our area from a telescope.
"This object is only about 50 meters across. So, it's very tiny and even if it was dark here, we wouldn't be able to see it," he said.
Quite the opposite from that meteor in Russia.
Even with their differences, it's pretty rare to have two brushes with space debris in less than 24 hours.
"This could be just another event that I am able to tell generations to come," Sparks said.
