The most dramatic and serioius—by far—was the bright fireball explosion over Russia, that according to reports from the region, injured more than 1000 people. Scientists are now boosting their estimates on the diameter of that meteor to 55 feet with a mass as large as 10,000 tons.
The San Francisco Bay Area had its own close encounter when an extremely bright meteor lit up the night sky around 7:45 p.m. PST on Friday.
NASA says neither meteor event is related to the space rock it’s tracking. Asteroid 2012 DA14 is about three times the size of the Russian meteor, and is now speeding away from Earth. It had its relatively close passing of Earth on Friday too, coming within just 17,000 miles. By comparison, the moon is more than 13 times that distance from Earth.
