Still from amateur video of “meteorite rain” by Fed Potapow
The meteor that exploded in the air over Russia earlier this year injuring more than a thousand people caused a shockwave that travelled twice around the world according to a new report.
The 10,000 tonne meteor exploded of Chelyabinsk in February, and the shockwaves shattered the windows of buildings in nearby towns. However, the shockwaves were felt much wider than that, with the International Monitoring System (IMS) network recording the shockwaves travelling twice around the world.
IMS stations are placed around the globe by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty organisation to monitor any nuclear bomb tests, but the sensitive tools are also able to record earthquakes and shockwaves from other vents such as the explosion of this meteor.
The study on the shockwaves in the journal Geophysical Research Letters described the explosion as being roughly equivalent to 460 kilotonnes of TNT, making it the largest explosion ever recorded since the mysterious “Tunguska event” in Siberia in 1908, which most scientists believe was also a meteor explosion.
