This is the same like how many kinds of water containing things, e.g. raw meat, eggs, fruits, can explode in a microwave oven if the microwave power is too high.

The meteor bodies belong to several classes of chemical compositions. Some of them contain very little volatiles, and they are made either of iron alloy or of silicate rocks or of a mixture of iron alloy and silicate rocks. These do not explode, at most they fragment into many smaller bodies.

Other classes contain great amounts of volatiles, e.g. water, organic compounds and sulfur compounds, and they frequently explode, depending on their size, shape and trajectory, i.e. if there is enough time for the interior to be heated to high temperatures, causing the phase change of the volatiles to gases.

Meteors and eggs do not normally explode, but under the right circumstances.. Boom!

I didn't state that the shockwave is independent of whether or not the body breaks up, I wrote, emphasised, "Expanding the diameter of that particle field will increase the size of the resultant shockwave, whether the particle separation itself is "explosive" or not."

Which your article (partially read, sorry, incredibly shitty reader) largely substantiates, largely in the itemised list in section 2.2. Pancaking of a bolide through fragmentation increases frontal area, has multiple points of mass interacting with the atmosphere over a larger area and with less mass at each point, and the (undiscussed) light-emission mechanism which itself largely derives from compressive heating and ionisation of the atmosphere (rather than friction against the atmosphere or heating of bolide particles themselves). Increasing the number, and surface areas, of particles increases the region and intensity of this effect.

As your source discusses, most fragmentation is a result of mechanical rather than thermal forcing of the bolide.

"jojobas and NASA's statements aren't contradictory."

jojobas wrote:

"PSA: meteors have nothing to do with explosions."

>You're being excessively argumentative.

You're defending idiocy. The PSA is false. There is science behind it. There is little nuance to salvage in any of it.