According to a report by BBC, around noon on December 18, 2019, a large meteor/small asteroid exploded over the Bering Strait. The Bering Strait is the body of water separating Russian and Alaska and the explosion took place closer to the Russian side near the Kamchatka Peninsula. It was first reported by the US Air Force who caught the explosion with a military satellite and passed the information on to NASA, that was given the responsibility of tracking near-Earth asteroids by the US government in 2005. However, this one had completely escaped NASA’s notice. The asteroid, that was several meters in size, was traveling at 20 miles (32kms) per second and exploded about 26 kilometers above the Bering Strait. Though it safely exploded over water, there was concern because it was near commercial airline routes. The explosion, estimated at 173 kilotons, was ten times the power of Hiroshima and was described as “historic” by Lindley Johnson who works with NASA’s planetary defense division responsible for tracking asteroids. Johnson said it was the the second...
