Asteroid Explodes Over Russia Injuring Hundreds

2/15/2013 (Updated 11:08:04 PM)

The asteroid passed by the earth Friday afternoon, without any catastrophic consequences.

However, in what scientists are calling an unrelated event, on Friday, nearly one thousand people were injured after a meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia's Ural mountains.

Amateur video showing the object with a thick white contrail and an intense flash. Flying through the sky after 9:00 a.m. local time with the power of an atomic bomb.

The sonic blasts from the meteor shattering an abundant amount of windows in the area.

Russian officials saying around three thousand buildings were damaged.

The meteor is estimated to be about ten tons and entered the earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least thirty-three thousand miles per hour.           

Also coincidentally Friday afternoon, the asteroid called 2012 DA14 by astronomers swept safely past about 17-thousand miles away from earth. 

Scientists say the two astronomical events do not go hand in hand.

"It has nothing to do with the asteroid that is flying by now. They're coming from totally different directions and also the amount of time between the two events would probably lead it to not be part of a fragment or something so if we were going to get hit by multiple fragments from this thing we probably would of already been hit," said Roy Williams of the Kopernik Observatory in Vestal.



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