Near miss! A gigantic meteor with energy output greater than Atomic Bomb missed hitting Brazil by whiskers

It was one of the most intense explosions in Earth's atmosphere in three years, and yet it took weeks for anyone to talk about it. NASA announced last week that back at the beginning of February, a meteor exploded over the Atlantic Ocean. Turns out, it was one for the record books.

The fireball shot through the sky over the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Brazil on Feb 6. As the meteor disintegrated, it released an energy equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT, the BBC reported. As IFL Science points out, that's more force than the atomic bomb detonated in Hiroshima.

According to NASA's Fireball and Bolide Reports, a meteor of this magnitude hadn't entered our atmosphere in 3 years. Most fireballs release barely one kiloton of energy, let alone 13 kilotons.

Indeed, it was the largest fiery meteor in Earth's atmosphere since the Chelyabinsk fireball in 2013, Ron Baalke of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted on Feb. 18.

-iflscience