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How dash cams recorded the Russian meteorite

Whilst recording the rare natural wonder of a meteorite crashing through the Earth’s atmosphere at 100,000 mph isn’t exactly on the top of the list of reasons to buy a dash camera, they do certainly provide amazing footage of something we’ve never seen on this scale before.

Whilst these are very rare events, they do in fact happen several times every year. So what was different this time? Well, mainly the fact that it was caught on camera by thousands of people across the region and immediately published online for the world to see.

Back in February this year an asteroid crashed into the Earth over Russia – named the Chelyabinsk meteor. This awe inspiring sight was travelling at an estimated 40,000 mph which lit up the morning sky creating dark shadows across the large Russian region.

Whilst these are very rare events, they do in fact happen several times every year. So what was different this time? Well, mainly the fact that it was caught on camera by thousands of people across the region and immediately published online for the world to see.

Never before has there been such an abundance of footage of such an event which is instantly viewable by people across the world. This was made possible by the popularity of dash cams and car cameras across Russia. Dash cams are popular to help combat insurance fraud and
corruption, so much so, that almost every car is equipped with one of these tiny little cameras.

The footage not only provided us with incredible video to watch on the news and on YouTube, it also provided scientists with high quality video evidence from almost every angle. With these multiple angles and video timestamps it allows scientists to piece together detailed information about the direction, size, and speed of this meteorite – for the first time!

Take a moment to think about this. According to latest estimates there are over 1 billion cars on our planet. If every car was equipped with a car camera we would have video evidence for every second of the day, in every direction, across the whole planet – you will either find that exciting to see what things we’ll capture or equally scary that someone is always watching!

Personally, I’m excited at the possibility of being able to capture even more wonderful things than the Chelyabinsk meteor. So, grab one of these car cameras today – you never know what you might capture!