Russian Meteor Injures 700, Not Related To Asteroid

Russia felt the blast of a meteor as it exploded over the country’s Urals region on Friday morning, injuring over 700 people across a vast landscape.

Fortunately, the majority of the injuries reported were mild with only roughly 34 people needing hospitalization, according to state news agency Itar-Tass. It’s estimated that 270 buildings have incurred damage as a result of the asteroid, including hospitals and schools.

"This kind of object does fall fairly frequently, but when they fall into the ocean or desert, there is no impact on people — so this one is unusual in the sense that it's come over a populated area," NASA’s Steve Cole told CNN.

Russia’s federal space agency, Roscosmos, hypothesizes that rather than being a part of a meteor shower, it was one meteoroid that entered the atmosphere, burned and disintegrated, according to RIA Novosti. The fragments that broke off into meteorites fell upon three areas of Russian soil, including Chelyabinsk and Kazakhstan.

The asteroid (2012 DA14) that is scheduled to fly past Earth today, while destined to come relatively close, is not expected to break the planet’s atmosphere. Nasa’s Don Yeomans declared, “No Earth impact is possible.”

Check out a video of the meteor streaking through the sky below: