NASA asteroid expert Don Yeomans, head of the agency's Near-Earth Object Program Office, told SPACE.com that the object which exploded over a thinly inhabited stretch of eastern Europe today was most likely an exploding fireball known as a bolide.
More than 500 people were injured, mostly by glass cuts when windows shattered during the blast, according to the Russian Emergency Ministry.
"If the reports of ground damage can be verified, it might suggest an object whose original size was several meters in extent before entering the atmosphere, fragmenting and exploding due to the unequal pressure on the leading side vs the trailing side (it pancaked and exploded),"
The question then is if the "explosion" caused the shock wave, or if it was just the sonic boom. And how many megatons was the explosion? And how long did it take?
The Space Shuttle used to fly in here over Los Angeles sometimes. There was a sonic boom, and the windows rattled, even set off car alarms. Check out this video at 2:59:
Or this one at 1:00
Space Shuttle:
Speed = 17,000 mph
Mass = 500,000 pounds
Kinetic Energy = 6.5 * 10^12
Meteor
Speed = 40,000 mph
Mass = 20,000,000 pounds
Kinetic Energy = 1.5 * 10^15 (1500 * 10^12)
So the Meteor had 230x the kinetic energy of the space shuttle. It seems reasonable that it would have a much larger sonic boom. If the space shuttle can rattle windows, then something with 230x the amount of energy can break windows.