A meteor caused an explosion of 173 kilotons and no one noticed

According to New Scientist, the third largest meteor explosion in modern times occurred in December 2018, but went unnoticed until last week. Thanks to the camera of the Japanese geostationary satellite Himawari-8, the NASA surveillance system detected the trace of this celestial body last December 18 over the Bering Sea – between Russia and Alaska ( USA). UU.) – at 23:50 GMT.

The explosion occurred at an altitude of 25.6 km, when the meteor hit the atmospheric layers at 32 km per second, according to the US Space Agency.

His column of almost vertical smoke indicates that he entered our atmosphere at a very right angle. In addition, it is possible to see the long shadow projected on a layer of clouds.

The fireball hit the atmosphere with an equivalent force of 173 kilotons of TNT, ten times more than the atomic bomb of the United States. launched against Hiroshima (Japan) on August 6, 1945.

This is the third potential explosion after the Chelyabinsk meteorite in 2013 and that of Tunguska in 1908, both in Russia.