The Shockwave Felt Around the World--Twice: Russian Meteor Makes an Impact

In February, a meteor hurtled over the Russian Urals before pieces of it slammed into the ground. The resulting shockwave caused glass to shatter, injuring over a thousand people during the event. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at this incident and have found that this meteor's shockwave traveled around the world--twice.

The 10-ton meteorite that streaked over Russia was what is known as a bolide, essentially an exploding fireball. A meteorite is a meteoroid, a smaller version of an asteroid, that survives the Earth's atmosphere before hurtling to the surface.

In this case, the meteorite sped toward Earth's atmosphere at 15 to 20 kilometers per second; it then shattered about 20 to 30 miles above our planet and caused a massive explosion. The resulting shock wave brought about shattered windows and glass. About 3,000 buildings were damaged, and the blast blew a hole in the walls of a metals factory in Chelyabinsk.

In order to better understand the events of February 15, the scientists studied data from the International Monitoring System (IMS) network operated by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), according to BBC News. This system looks out for ultra-low frequency acoustic waves, known as infrasound. These acoustic waves are usually associated with nuclear test explosions, but can also be associated with other large blasts--such as the fireball that streaked over Russia.

So what did they find? It turns out that the Russian meteor delivered an equivalent energy of nearly 30 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs in the skies over Chelyabinsk. In all, it had the value of 460 kilotons of TNT equivalent. This confirmed that the meteor strike was the largest impact since the 1908 Tunguska event, which flattened 80 million trees over an area of 830 square miles, according to Discovery News.

The findings not only reveal a little bit more about the meteor that exploded over Russia, but also shows the importance of trying to predict these events. The Russian meteor was a complete surprise, and there was no advanced warning of its effects. By learning more about these events, researchers can hopefully predict this type of event in the future--or at least prepare for it a bit better.

The findings are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Want to see a clip of the meteor? Check it out in the video below, courtesy of YouTube.