The small bright orange fireball against the blue-white background of earth (@simon_sat/Twitter) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has revealed that a huge fireball exploded in the earth’s atmosphere in December 2018, reports BBC News.
However, it went undetected because of it blowing up over the Bering Sea, off the Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. The meteor exploded with 10 times the energy released by the atom bomb used in Hiroshima, Japan.
According to the report, the space rock came through the earth’s atmosphere at the speed of 32 km per second on a steep trajectory of seven degrees on 18 December. It measured several kms and exploded 25.6 km above the Earth's surface, with an impact energy of 173 kilotonnes.
The blast was reportedly the second largest of its kind in 30 years, and the biggest since a similar event over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago.
"That was 40 per cent the energy release of Chelyabinsk, but it was over the Bering Sea so it didn't have the same type of effect or show up in the news," said Kelly Fast, near-Earth objects observations programme manager at NASA during an event in Houston, Texas, as reported by BBC.
"That's another thing we have in our defence, there's plenty of water on the planet," Fast added.
The blast was picked up by the military satellites and NASA was notified of the event by the United States Air Force.
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