Foreword | Terry Grimwood (Editor)
At 09:20 local time, on the 15th February 2013, a meteor streaked out of a clear blue sky over Chelyabinsk, Western Siberia. For a moment, it was an oddity caught out of the corner of the eye, movement where there should be none, a scratch of flame across the clean, sapphire canopy. Then the fireball erupted into a dazzling flare of pure light as it fragmented into a million pieces. Minutes later a whole town was pounded by the shockwave of the meteor’s disintegration. Glass shattered, alarms shrieked into life, people were thrown from their feet, bones were broken.
No one knew the meteor was on its way, no one had detected the object. One moment the sky was cloudless, clear and clean, the next wondrous, and then terrifying...
The sky then, quiet, restless, a canvas for wonders and signs, gateway for terrestrial disaster, unbearably beautiful, a place of peace, and for much of the last century, a theatre of war. And so often ignored, taken for granted.
But not always, because here you have found a band of observers, a rag tag crowd who have gathered on the summit of a hill to gaze upwards. So why don't you tear your own eyes from the ground and join them? You will be transfixed, amazed and frightened by what you see in the sky…
No one knew the meteor was on its way, no one had detected the object. One moment the sky was cloudless, clear and clean, the next wondrous, and then terrifying...
The sky then, quiet, restless, a canvas for wonders and signs, gateway for terrestrial disaster, unbearably beautiful, a place of peace, and for much of the last century, a theatre of war. And so often ignored, taken for granted.
But not always, because here you have found a band of observers, a rag tag crowd who have gathered on the summit of a hill to gaze upwards. So why don't you tear your own eyes from the ground and join them? You will be transfixed, amazed and frightened by what you see in the sky…