Map tracks path of dust plume from Chelyabinsk meteor
Satellite data capture how jet stream pushed particles through planet's atmosphere
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When an 11,000-metric-ton meteor ripped through Earth’s atmosphere on February 15, 2013, it left behind a streak of dust that encircled the planet, satellite data show.
The space rock, which was 18 meters across, sped through the sky at nearly 66,900 kilometers per hour (41,600 miles per hour) and exploded — with 30 times the energy of a World War II atom bomb — in the stratosphere about 23 kilometers above Chelyabinsk, Russia. An instrument on the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite detected the particle plume from the explosion and began tracking it as it rapidly moved east, reaching the Aleutian Islands in just a day.