Life and Its Future by Josephine C. Adams & Jürgen Engel

Author:Josephine C. Adams & Jürgen Engel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030590758
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

To obtain a direct feeling of what happens when an extra-terrestrial body enters the atmosphere of the Earth, we can consider the rather detailed recordings of an airburst that happened over the Chelyabinsk Oblast in Kazakhstan on February 15, 2013 (Popova et al. 2013). This was the second disaster caused by an asteroid that was well-recorded by humans: the first occurred over Tunguska, Siberia, Russia, in 1908 and was probably also caused by an asteroid airburst.

Estimates of the Russian Federal Space Agency indicate that the asteroid of 2013 was about 20 m in diameter with a weight of 12,000 tons. It travelled at a speed of 30 km/s in a low trajectory to the Earth’s surface. When it reached the atmosphere its speed was reduced to about 15 km/s due to friction with the gases of the atmosphere. Precise measurements were possible because the path and speed of the meteor was monitored by a large number of military stations established by the Russians. At about 30 km above the earth’s surface, the meteor exploded (the airburst) generating an extremely bright flash (Fig. 6.7). A cloud of hot dust and gases was produced and the meteor fragmented into many pieces. When these meteorite fragments hit the ground they caused an earthquake of low strength.

Fig. 6.7.Photograph of the meteor that entered the atmosphere of the Earth near the town of Chelyabinsk in Kasachstan in February 2013

(Reproduced from Wikipedia, English version)

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