Dozens were hospitalized and nearly 1,000 residents suffered
minor injuries from fallen debris and the impact of the meteor's
powerful landing. NBC's Tom Costello reports. What exactly fell
on Russia's Chelyabinsk region on Friday? Was it an asteroid,
meteor, meteoroid, meteorite or fireball? You could make a case
for "any of the above," depending on your definitions and the
precise part of the phenomenon you're trying to describe. The
Chelyabinsk incident is the biggest known cosmic impact since
another Russian blast that occurred a century ago, the Tunguska
incident of 1908. There's good reason for that notoreity:
Hundreds of injuries were reported. NASA estimated that the
energy released by the Chelyabinsk impact amounted to 300
kilotons of TNT, which suggests the blast was more than 10 times
as powerful as the atom bombs that were dropped on Japan at the
end of World War II. NASA's assessment put the Chelyabinsk
object's width at 15 meters (50 feet), and its mass at 7,000
tons. Much of that mass burned up