AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Meteor that hit Russia may have had close shave with the Sun. “A study of its composition showed the space rock had undergone ‘intensive melting’ before entering Earth’s atmosphere and streaking over the central Russia’s Chelyabinsk region in a blinding fireball, they said in a statement. . . . The meteor is estimated to have been 17 metres wide before exploding with the equivalent force of 30 times that of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. Its shockwave blew out windows and damaged buildings across five Russian regions.”