Russia: Siberia sees the largest recorded meteor strike in more than a century

The contrail of a meteor that exploded over Russia on Friday is seen from the city of Chelyabinsk. The bus-size meteor set off the largest explosion of its kind in more than a century, at least according to Western scientists. And even more unusual for an incoming meteor, it caused numerous injuries, mostly from flying glass, as the shock wave violently jolted Chelyabinsk. Based on preliminary calculations, the asteroid weighed about 7,000 tons and was about 50 feet in diameter when it entered the atmosphere at 40,000 mph, said Peter Brown, a professor of physics at the University of Western Ontario.