Introduction
A meteor broke apart and exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains this morning (Feb. 15), injuring hundreds and breaking windows.
As it entered Earth's atmosphere, people witnessing the event filmed the hunk of space rock as it streaked across the sky and shattered into pieces.
This might be the most recent fireball to enter the atmosphere, but it's certainly not the first.
Here are five incredible fireballs caught on video:
Piece of Comet Creates Bright Streak
A 3.3 foot-wide (1 meter) piece of what could have been Halley's Comet rocketed through the atmosphere at a blistering 86,000 mph (138,404 km/h).
The video of the fragment shooting across the sky was recorded by a NASA camera in Cartersville, GA on May 20, 2011.
The piece of ice and rock disintegrated 37 miles (59.5 km) above the surface of the Earth.
Texas Meteor Caught on Camera
A dashboard camera on a squad car from the Little River-Academy Police Department in Texas caught this fireball as it fell through Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2012.
Lick Observatory Fireball
In October of 2012, a meteor was sighted at the Lick Observatory in California.
The fireball wasn't caught on video by observatory cameras, however. Instead, the security cameras responsible for keeping an eye on the observatory itself caught the streaking meteor on film.
Fireball Over Arkansas
Amateur astronomer Brian Emfinger caught this time-lapse video of the Quadrantid meteor shower on Jan. 2, 2012.
Emfinger captured one particularly bright fireball as it streaked across the sky in Arkansas.
The Quadrantid meteor shower happens yearly when the Earth passes through a trail of dust and debris left behind from a comet or asteroid. Usually the specks of dust are too small to create fireballs, but occasionally one larger piece makes it into the atmosphere, sometimes creating a brilliant light show.
Space Rock Over Georgia
NASA's All-Sky camera in Georgia captured video of a meteor slowly burning up in the night sky.
The video was caught in February of last year when there were multiple sightings of the slow moving space rocks throughout the month. Some of the meteors made it as far as 31 miles (50 km) above Earth's surface.
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