SEE IT: First images emerge of meteor that exploded with 10x the energy of atomic bomb in Hiroshima
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Japanese weather satellite has provided visual evidence of the historic asteroid that exploded in the atmosphere over the Bering Sea in December that packed a punch of 10 atomic bombs used by the U.S. in Hiroshima, a report said.
The New Scientist reported that the evidence of the Dec. 18 blast off Russia was captured by a camera on the Jimawari-8 weather satellite. The report said a smoke cloud was spotted at 2350 GMT, which was the same time that NASA’s monitoring sensors picked up on the meteor.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The BBC reported that the asteroid measured several meters and had the impact energy of 173 kilotons. It exploded about 15 miles above the Earth’s surface. The bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima had the energy of about 15 kilotons. Space.com reported that only one impact since 2000 was more powerful. The report pointed out that in 1908, a meteor exploded over Siberia that generated 185 times more energy than the Hiroshima bomb, and "flattened 800 square miles of forest."
Simon Proud, a meteorologist at Oxford, shared the image on Twitter and said, “I’m sure it’s the meteor trace.”