While we were all busy getting ready for Christmas, a meteor hurtling towards Earth, and on December 18 it hit our atmosphere, became a luminous fireball, and exploded with 10 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb… and we all somehow missed it.
Some colour views of the #meteor that flew over the North Pacific in December 2018, taken by Japan's #Himawari satellite.
The meteor is really clear here – bright orange fireball against the blue + white background!Background: https://t.co/r403SQxicZ pic.twitter.com/ctNN8zxsXb
— Simon Proud (@simon_sat) March 18, 2019
US military satellites picked up the explosion last year and subsequently referred it to NASA to investigate. We are hearing about it now, as Dr Kelly Fast, near-Earth objects observations program manager at NASA, was discussing it earlier today at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas.
To breakdown what happened… The meteor, which was several meters across, came whizzing through the atmosphere towards Earth at a speed of 32 kilometres (20 miles) per second at a steep trajectory of 7°. It appeared at 11.50pm UT (midday local time), 25.6 kilometres (16 miles) above the planet’s surface, before the friction of the atmosphere caused it to explode, which it then went on to do with an impact of 173 kilotons of TNT.
