A meteor on course for Earth was caught on camera by several in Russia.


It happened just after 9 a.m. local time over the central part of the country.


As the piece of rock from space raced through the atmosphere, the intense friction caused a bright light blinding the many drivers on the road.


"The earth is spherical and these objects are pretty much everywhere out there, so it could show up anywhere," said Penn State astrophysicist Chris Palma.


Palma added that impacts are more common than we may think since most of them happen where no one lives, so they don't end up being reported.


But what happened Friday morning, he said may only happen once a decade.


"As any object moves through our atmosphere faster than the speed of sound, it's going to create a shock wave that you are going to hear as a sonic boom," he explained.


That wave was the culprit for shattered windows, injuring over a thousand people.


"Lucky it wasn't worse than what it was," said Steubenville resident John Boscla.


"I couldn't believe that that actually happened cause I've never heard of it happening before. It was kind of scary," Heather Young of Follansbee said.


This happened just hours before a known asteroid passed by Earth this afternoon. That asteroid was much bigger, about half the size of a football field. It passed by closer than some of our weather satellites.


Palma said they likely aren't related.


"This particular meteor appears to have come from a completely different direction and be traveling in a different direction which means the chances of them being related are almost zero."


Palma told NEWS9 the meteors that make it to the surface are actually very useful to scientists in his field. He said they can be used to tell scientists about our solar system and how it formed.