alt Hacker NewsThe Wikipedia article on "meteor air burst" has an explanation that basically matches yours, although they do use the word "explosion" to describe it. Which makes sense to me: whatever one chooses to call it, it's a nearly instantaneous spontaneous disassembly that is very bright, very hot, and very loud.
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gruntled-worker • today at 12:58 AM
We are not disassembling, we are assembling in another time direction.
The speed scale for disassembly is nowhere near the forward speed; you never get anywhere close to 45 degree debris divergence angle. It's also, again, not the disassembly that causes it to be bright, hot and loud. Wikipedians can also be wrong.