The meteor strike that injured hundreds of people in Russia earlier this year could have been much more dangerous according to new research, and scientists say it "shows that the Earth is vulnerable".
The violent explosion on February 18 saw the 20-metre space rock split into fragments miles above the city of Chelyabinsk and was the biggest blast of its kind in more than 100 years.
It briefly outshone the sun and inflicted severe burns on observers below, as well as smashing windows and rattling buildings.
But researchers say a more solid rock would have caused greater damage and casualties.
One report author Victor Grokhovsky told Sky News: "The unusual thing about this asteroid is that it was very loose in nature. It was more like a clump of gravel pressed together.
"It was flying in space for a long time, got into the atmosphere and was split up into fragments there. This happened very high up and most of it vaporised before it got to Earth - less than 1% of fragments reached the Earth."
He added: "These kinds of events will continue happening, the question is how frequently and how dangerous it would be.The meteor was at its brightest and hottest when it was 18 miles above the Earth. Its speed at this point has been calculated at 40,000mph, or 11.6 miles per second.
That means a rock that was initially the size of a double-decker bus was travelling at 20 times the speed of a bullet.
It was the largest object to hit Earth since the Tunguska event of 1908, when an exploding comet or asteroid destroyed 2,000 square kilometers of Siberian forest.
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