Russian City Chelyabinsk Meteor In Feb. 2013 Left New Dust Layer In Earth’s Atmosphere [VIDEO]

A huge meteor explosion rocked the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia back in February, leaving shattered windows and thousands of people injured. But aside from the known damages of the explosion, scientists found out that the meteor left a plume of dust in the Earth's atmosphere.

The video created by the group of scientists who studied the effects of the meteor explosion in the earth's atmosphere, shows that clouds with hundreds of tons of materials in it are still present in the stratosphere three months after the explosion.

The meteor, which weighed more than 11,000 metric tons and measured around 59 feet in diameter, exploded 15 meters above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. According to scientists, the explosion released energy that is more than 30 times the energy released by the atomic bomb that was dropped in Hiroshima during World War II.

Days after the explosion, Russian authorities were still cleaning the pieces of the Chelyabinsk meteor when the higher portion of the plume reached the Earth's northern hemisphere. This prompted scientist to use a NASA satellite to study and measure the thin stratospheric dust belt.

"We wanted to know if our satellite could detect the meteor dust. Indeed, we saw the formation of a new dust belt in Earth's stratosphere, and achieved the first space-based observation of the long-term evolution of a bolide plume," said NASA Goddard atmospheric physicist Nick Gorkavyi.

Scientist will still conduct further studies to determine the full implication of their discovery. It is still unknown whether or not the dust layer will have a direct effect on cloud formation in the earth's stratosphere and mesosphere.

"Thirty years ago, we could only state that the plume was embedded in the stratospheric jet stream. Today, our models allow us to precisely trace the bolide and understand its evolution as it moves around the globe," said Paul Newman, the chief scientist of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's atmospheric science lab.