On 15 February 2013 the Chelyabinsk meteor was a near-Earth asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere over Russia. It entered with an estimated speed of 18.6 km/s, that is almost 60 times the speed of sound.
Over the the southern Ural region it quickly became a brilliant superbolide meteor and the light from the meteor was brighter than the sun.
Infact eyewitnesses also felt intense heat from the fireball.
The object exploded in an air burst over Chelyabinsk Oblast at a height of around 23.3 km due to its enormous velocity and shallow atmospheric entry angle.
The explosion generated a bright flash, producing many small fragmentary meteorites and a powerful shock wave.
The atmosphere absorbed most of the object's energy, with a total kinetic energy before atmospheric impact equivalent to approximately 500 kilotons of TNT (about 1.8 PJ), 20–30 times more energy than was released from the atomic bomb detonated at Hiroshima.
