Great Balls of Guilt

So today's frightening news was all about a meteorite hitting the Russian Urals:

At least 112 people have been seriously hurt among the 1100 injured, according to the Interior Ministry. About 200 children who had been at schools were among the hurt from flying glass and debris.

The meteorite, which weighed about 10 metric tons and may have been made of iron, entered Earth's atmosphere and broke apart 30-50 km (19-31 miles) above ground, according to Russia's Academy of Sciences.

The energy released when it entered the Earth's atmosphere was equivalent to a few kilotonnes, the academy said, the power of a small atomic weapon exploding.

All of which immediately made me feel irrationally guilty about yesterday's lighthearted post on Asteroid 2012 DA14. I know, I know, I didn't make the Russian fireball happen, I'm not that powerful, and I truly wouldn't even if I could control the stars and planets and every bit of space debris in between, but still...

Luckily, updates such as this soon soothed my troubled conscience:

NASA said that the Chelyabinsk fireball had nothing to do with the approaching 2012 DA14 asteroid, as some scientists had previously suggested.

"The trajectory of the Russian meteorite was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, making it a completely unrelated object,” the space agency said on its website. 

 Events like this are a timely reminder that there's a lot going on out in the great unknown beyond the comfort of our cosy Spaceship Earth as it negotiates the universe's highly unregulated interstellar traffic.