Meteor Hit With the Equivalent of 30 Hiroshima Bombs

The meteor that streaked across the skies over Russia in a blinding fireball on Friday exploded with a force about 30 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb, Nasa scientists have said.

The 55-foot rock, said by Nasa to have a mass of 10,000 tonnes, plunged to Earth in the Urals region on Friday morning, causing shockwaves that injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes in an event unprecedented in modern times.

Nasa estimated that the energy released by the meteor's impact with the atmosphere was 500 kilotonnes, around 30 times the force of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. It entered the atmosphere and broke up at an altitude of around 32 miles, causing a shockwave that blew out windows and set of car alarms in Chelyabinsk two and a half minutes later.

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