Watch NOVA's "Meteor Strike"

By Nancy Atkinson - March 28, 2013 at 5:05 PM UTC | Planetary Science
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Watch Meteor Strike on PBS. See more from NOVA.

It was an event that took the world by surprise: On the morning of February 15, 2013 a 7,000-ton asteroid crashed into the Earth's atmosphere. According to NASA, the Siberian meteor exploded with the power of 30 Hiroshima bombs and was the largest object to burst in the atmosphere since the Tunguska event of 1908. This video from PBS's science show NOVA aired last night on television and is now available to watch online. (Note: the video may not yet be available to watch in all areas of the world.)

The show reveals what scientists have gleaned so far about this object from the numerous dashcam videos in Russia and other data, and how this event could have been much worse.

It features interviews with several scientists, including Peter Brown and Margaret Campbell-Brown from the University of Western Ontario, Mark Boslough from the University of New Mexico, Dan Durda from the Southwest Research Institute and Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who is now Chair Emeritus of the

B612 Foundation

, the organization that is building the "Sentinel" telescope to search for asteroids heading for Earth.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com