Russian Meteor Could Strike Anywhere Once in a Decade

Amateur video shows a bright streak seen for hundreds of miles across the skies over Russia, this before it exploded with bright flash and a deafening bang.

“The end of the world is how people describe it, people who worked on artillery battles in batteries in World War 2 said this was so much louder than those artillery batteries that there was no contest,” said Robert Beauford, Editor of Meteorite Magazine.

Beauford who is working on his doctorates at the University of Arkansas Center for Space Planetary Science says the meteor was unexpected.

“This particular one was a complete surprise; it came out of the blue, as it were.”

The asteroid Friday afternoon, called 2012 DA14, was expected.

Scientists have been tracking the asteroid’s path for the last year.

“We get missed by things that size fairly frequently, every few years with something that size, it’s about the size of a football field,” said Dr. Claud Lacy, University of Arkansas Physics Professor.

The meteor Friday morning estimated to weigh 10 tons traveling at a hypersonic speed of 33,000 miles per hour.

“Which was about 12 times faster than our fastest bullets,” said Beauford.

Beauford says the meteor this morning was about 20 miles above ground when it created a shockwave, injuring at least a thousand people.

“There it knocked down ceilings of fragile vulnerable buildings and knocked in thousands and thousands of windows, this would be a concussion standing near a large explosion.”

Seeing a meteor like this only happens about once a decade around the globe, but could happen anywhere, even here in Arkansas.

“It’s not a question of if, it`s just a question of when, it will definitely happen,” said Dr. Lacy.

Dr. Lacy said thousands of meteors the size of a grain of sand hit the Earth every day, he also said every year there’s a one in one million chance a catastrophic meteor could hit the planet.