Meteor no one saw coming exploded over Earth with force of 10 atomic bombs

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/ Source: Live Science

By Brandon Specktor, Live Science

On Dec. 18, 2018, a school bus-size meteor exploded over Earth with an impact energy of roughly 10 atomic bombs. According to NASA, the blast was the second-largest meteor impact since the organization began tracking them 30 years ago, bested only by the infamous fireball that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in Feb. 2013.

Despite this, hardly anyone noticed it was happening — and nobody saw it coming.

As to why one of the largest meteor impacts in recent history may have totally passed you by, that’s likely because the space rock in question shattered over the Bering Sea, a cold stretch of the Pacific Ocean between Russia and Alaska, miles from inhabited land. [The 10 Biggest Impact Craters on Earth]

NASA learned about the December impact thanks to the U.S. Air Force, whose missile-monitoring satellites were among the first to detect the blast. The rumble of the impact also registered on infrasound detectors — stations that measure low-frequency sound waves inaudible to human ears — around the world, giving scientists enough data to draw some basic conclusions about the sneaky meteor.

source: nbcnews.com