What is "air burst"

n. (alternative spelling of airburst English)

An air burst is the detonation of an explosive device such as an anti-personnel artillery shell or a nuclear weapon in the air instead of on contact with the ground or target or a delayed armor-piercing explosion. The principal military advantage of an air burst over a ground burst is that the energy from the explosion (as well as any shell fragments) is distributed more evenly over a wider area; however, the peak energy is lower at ground zero.

The term may also refer to naturally occurring air bursts arising from the explosions of incoming meteors as happened in the Tunguska event, the 1930 Curuçá River event, and the Chelyabinsk meteor event.