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A healthy meteor weighing around the same as a rarefied piano recently exploded in the sky above Texas , potentially shower the surrounding area with modest fragments . One of these meteorite chunks has already been recuperate and could aid bring out more about our cosmic neighborhood , expert say .
The meteor , which was likely a smallasteroid , entered Earth ’s atmosphere on Feb. 15 at around 5 p.m. CST and break apart in a salvo of fire about 21 land mile ( 33.8 km ) above the metropolis of McAllen . This eccentric of distance rock is known as a human dynamo meteor because of the bright flash given off as it burst apart , due to friction between the tight - affect object and the air in the atmosphere .
A close-up of the recovered fireball fragment.
" base on psychoanalysis of preliminary information from several sources , NASAexperts believe the object was a meteoroid about two feet [ 0.6 meters ] in diameter weighing about 1,000 pounds [ 454 kilo ] , " representatives from NASA ’s Meteor Watch wrote onFacebook . The meteor was travel at around 27,000 miles per hour ( 43,450 km / h ) when it exploded and released the equivalent energy of around 8 loads ( 7.3 metrical tons ) of TNT , they tally .
The meteor ’s size of it and pep pill suggested that fragments had in all likelihood reached the earth without burning up wholly , NASA representatives write .
On Feb. 18,Robert Ward , a meteorite hunter establish in Arizona , recovered a fragment of the meteorite near El Sauz , Texas , after tracing the debris ' flight using data from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radiolocation , grant to theAmerican Meteor Society(AMS ) .
Meteorite hunter Robert Ward poses next to the meteorite chunk he found near El Sauz.
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" When sample such as the end of this event are collected and studied , they enhance our understanding of the parentage and evolution of oursolar system , " NASA representatives wrote .
There are likely more sherd scattered in the same field as Ward ’s fragment . If someone finds one on Edwin Herbert Land they own then that person possess the fragment , but if you encounter it on public realm you should reach out to the Smithsonian Institute , which supervise the National Meteorite Collection , NASA representatives wrote .
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In a weird coincidence , the recent fireball go far precisely 10 years after theChelyabinsk meteor , which was around nine times enceinte than the Texas powerhouse and exploded over Russia Feb. 15 , 2013 , with the equivalent force of around 30 Hiroshima bomb , Mike Hankey , operations director at AMS , tell Live Science in an email .
The recent bolide was also the third powerhouse meteor observe worldwide in as many days : On Feb. 13 a meteor exploded in the skies above France , and on Feb. 14 a quad rock broke apart above Italy , harmonize to AMS . What ’s more , all three produced meteorites that have been recovered by experts , which is very rarefied , Hankey add .
