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NASA scientists, others piece together the Russian meteor blast

Scientists are still piecing together where that meteor that blew apart over Russia on Feb. 15 came from.

What a day. For weeks, NASA was telling people around the world that they were in no danger from a asteroid that would come within 17,000 miles of Earth on Feb. 15. They had been tracking 2012 DA14 for a while, and there was no threat, they said.

So when a giant meteor flew in from space and broke up over  Chelyabinsk, there was a bit of head shaking.

Today, NASA released information that said the Russian meteor came from the asteroid belt, about 2.5 times further from the sun than Earth.

Peter Brown, a physics professor from Western Ontario, analyzed the data and said this: "The asteroid was about 17 meters in diameter and weighed approximately 10,000 metric tons. It struck Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and broke apart about 12 to 15 miles above Earth's surface.

"The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT."

Boom, baby.

NASA said there was no connection between Russian meteor and the asteroid that flew by Earth later that day.

Why didn't anyone see it? Because it flew from the direction of the sun where no telescope could see it, according to NASA.

For more information, click here.

(Image: Associated Press)