Watch Video of Russian Meteorite Exploding in Sky – Hundreds Injured Today

NBC news reported this morning that roughly 1000 people were injured today when a meteorite exploded as it neared the ground over Russia. Video of the Russian meteorite aired on NBC this morning and can be watched online below on this page.

According to the reports the most of the injuries were minor and resulted from windows breaking as the meteorite triggered a shock wave as it streamed across the Russian sky and started to break up. In another report the falling Russian meteorite also caused a roof collapse at a factory.

The video of the Russian meteorite below is a compilation of several amateur videos posted online and aired on the NBC Today show. In the video the meteor’s flaring arc – called a bolide by scientists – is seen streaming cross the western Siberia sky.

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NBC reported that the early were that about 500 were injured with many heading to hospitals, however a health official in the city of Chelyabinsk, Marina Moskvicheva, later reported that 985 people were asking for medical assistance for injuries caused by flying glass.

In an interview on the Today show, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, called the meteorite a once in a decade event, saying the impact was the physics equivalent of hitting a brick wall. “When you hit a brick wall, you basically explode, and that’s what happened here, and it exploded in midair,” Tyson said.

This meteorite just happens to coincide with the impending arrivel Asteroid 2012 DA14 which will make a very close flyby of the Earth tonight. The 150-foot-wide asteroid will pass a mere 17,200 miles of Earth – closer than the orbit of many of our communications satellites. A live video stream from a NASA telescope will air the passing of the Asteroid beginning tonight, February 15th, at 9PM eastern. The video can be seen at this link for an earlier article
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