Author Topic: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia  (Read 222865 times)

Offline smoliarm

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #460 on: 02/24/2013 07:53 am »
From my German friend I heard a song - a kid-song - with this line:
"Wenn meine Tante Räder hätte, so wäre sie ein Omnibus!"
Loosely translated:
"If only my aunt had four wheels, she'd be a bus!"


>>When you consider that a chunk of Hawaii falling into the ocean...
the HIGHEST so far estimate for this meteorite is 17 meters in diameter, and it is very questionable.
However, even this is pretty far from "a chunk of Hawaii"

>>Have any calculations been made to try to predict what size of tsunami this kind of object would have produced?
No need for calculations, you can refer to photos:
http://bm.img.com.ua/berlin/storage/orig/9/5b/2be9e9074bfe57637da55931f502a5b9.jpg
http://slon.ru/images2/blog_photo_18/2013_02_15/meteorit1-1.jpg
All these objects (chondrites, comet nuclei, etc) are very fragile, they break up in atmosphere very early in tiny pieces most of which burn completely. Therefore, the blast wave is more dangerous (by far) than any impact effects.
On these photos you see the BIGGEST impact damage, the shock wave damage was MUCH worse, about 170,000 m2 of broken window glass.

Earthquake Tsunamis are common and dangerous, and by multiplying the magnitude of the last one by x10 you create a Global Disaster. From the other hand, there is no case in the entire recorded history of meteorite tsunami.
Reasonable conclusion - the focus should be on earthquakes, twisters and hurricanes, the meteorites present comparatively minor threat.



Offline R7

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #461 on: 02/24/2013 10:32 am »
Have any calculations been made to try to predict what size of tsunami this kind of object would have produced? When you consider that a chunk of Hawaii falling into the ocean is suspected of triggering a "mega-tsunami" that deposited coral seafloor high on a cliff in Australia, I think this could have been much worse.

The "chunk of Hawaii" weighs so many orders of magnitude more than the russian rock that the differences in energies released is several orders of magnitude too.

The russian meteorite yield was about 300-500kt IIRC. There have been underwater nuclear test 23kt Shot Baker and 15Mt Castle Bravo at Bikini atoll, and it's still there (albeit with big holes), no tsunamis ensued.

Shot Baker:



and Castle Bravo (largest H-bomb detonated by US):

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Offline Danderman

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #462 on: 02/24/2013 03:29 pm »
I would guess that some rogue waves are caused by distant meteor falls.

Offline hop

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #463 on: 02/24/2013 06:21 pm »
I would guess that some rogue waves are caused by distant meteor falls.
I very much doubt they are a significant source. We know that most things up to the size of the Chelyabinsk body (and even quite a bit larger) detonate at high altitude, and we know that impacts this size are extremely rare. With things like CTBTO infrasound network, events on this scale will be detected no matter where they occur.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #464 on: 02/24/2013 11:39 pm »
When we did our NEO study we had some discussions of the issue of tsunamis caused by meteors. Jay Melosh is one of the foremost experts on impacts (he's the one who created that website where you can plug in an asteroid and see the effects). From what I remember, he said that it was doubtful that you'd get tsunami effects from a relatively large one (for various definitions of "large") hitting in the middle of the ocean. Tsunamis are highly dependent upon the shape of the ocean floor, so a decent sized meteor hitting in shallow water will definitely produce a tsunami, but in the middle of the deep ocean it is doubtful.

But like I said, it depends upon your definition of large.

Offline smoliarm

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #465 on: 02/25/2013 01:50 pm »
I would also be very interested in eyewitness reports of electrophonic sound PRIOR to the acoustic shock -- that is, during the brightest flaring of the fireball. This is a at-long-last well-established effect of plasma-generated radio noise coupling into near-observer physical objects and creating a hissing or whooshing sound. It occurs simo with the visual flares, seems to come from 'all around' [not from above], has been reported for centuries by some bright fireball witnesses and pooh-poohed by scientists until work by Colin Keay and others established its validity. 

Jim, there were indeed plenty of such reports. Today's article
http://chelyabinsk.ru/text/newsline/625214.html
is titled
**Болид, взорвавшийся над Челябинском, оказался «звучащим»**
**Chelyabinsk Fireball turned out to be "sounding"**

Article says 27 eyewitnesses independently noted that they heard weak but clear hissing sounds DURING the flight. Many of them compared the sound with "Bengal sparkler" (Popular in Russia type of hand-held light firework) and noted that could not determine neither the source of hissing nor direction it came from.

This information was gathered via internet-form for eyewitness reports here:
http://www.chel-meteorit.youini.ru/
I'd like to note that there is no direct question in the form about this effect, the respondents were NOT prompted to describe it, they all did it in "Additional Comments" field.


Offline sdsds

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #466 on: 02/25/2013 08:28 pm »
Asteroid defence
The real star war
Something useful for America’s underemployed space agency to do

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21572203-something-useful-americas-underemployed-space-agency-do-real-star-war
— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 —

Offline JimO

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #467 on: 02/25/2013 10:14 pm »
Jim, there were indeed plenty of such reports.

Oh, WOW!  Thanks!

Let me get over to that site and try to read it -- I have a hard enough time with American blog-speak, but I know street Russian pretty well. Hmmm...


Offline JimO

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #468 on: 02/25/2013 10:22 pm »
Today's article
http://chelyabinsk.ru/text/newsline/625214.html
is titled **Chelyabinsk Fireball turned out to be "sounding"**

I tried to 'register' to allow posting a comment but that page was forbidden. Do they have some za rubezhom filter?

Offline catdlr

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #469 on: 02/26/2013 01:14 am »
ScienceCasts: What Exploded Over Russia?

Published on Feb 25, 2013
Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for breaking science news.

Two weeks after an asteroid exploded over Russia's Ural mountains, scientists are making progress understanding the origin and make-up of the unexpected space rock. This week's ScienceCast presents their latest results.

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Offline go4mars

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #470 on: 02/26/2013 02:25 am »
there is no case in the entire recorded history of meteorite tsunami.
Does Burckle crater not count?
Elasmotherium; hurlyburly Doggerlandic Jentilak steeds insouciantly gallop in viridescent taiga, eluding deluginal Burckle's abyssal excavation.

Offline smoliarm

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #471 on: 02/26/2013 11:39 am »
Today's article
http://chelyabinsk.ru/text/newsline/625214.html
is titled **Chelyabinsk Fireball turned out to be "sounding"**

I tried to 'register' to allow posting a comment but that page was forbidden. Do they have some za rubezhom filter?


Most likely, they just have some advanced spam filter.
This site - chelyabinsk.ru - is just a local news agency, they suffer a lot from spam :(

In case you need additional information, I have better idea - I could try to find a contact with Gorokhovski for you. He is the leader of Ural University team working on Chelyabinsk meteorite. I do not know him personally, but hopefully I could get his email from friends.

Some details on electrophonic effects in Chelyabinsk which did not make it to the news:
# It looks like the level of electrophonic sound was indeed low, most reports of *hissing* fireball came from quiet country places.
# One eyewitness was able to point to the source of sound. She believes that it was the TELEPHONE cable of external line (from the pole to the house).
# Another report of fireball with hissing sound was from a village some 120 km to the East from Chelyabinsk. Here, the person described it as *low level cracking HUM very similar to what you hear near high voltage power line*.

==============================
It happened so I just came across the case of well-documented eyewitness account of electrophonic sound with another meteor event, Vitim Bolide.
Here is the original article:
http://www.scientific.ru/journal/vitim.html
The article itself discusses general things, eyewitness report of electrophonic sound is in this paragraph:
“Очевидец Ярыгин Евгений Сергеевич”

Quote
"… далекий звук возник еще до появления свечения - похожий на гул от самолета. Звук шел с той же стороны, что и свечение, а удар пришел с противоположной стороны, куда ушло свечение".

"… distant sound came even before the beginning of glowing, it was like distant airplane hum. Sound came from the same side as glowing. The blast came from the opposite side, where the glowing went. "

Vitim Bolide (or Vitim event) is briefly described in Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitim_event
I have to note, that wiki paragraph about “Kosmopoisk expedition” should be disregarded, their report turned out to be erroneous.



Offline smoliarm

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #472 on: 02/26/2013 11:59 am »
there is no case in the entire recorded history of meteorite tsunami.
Does Burckle crater not count?

Of course, it does not  :)
I am talking about historical records and about events

This does not mean that there was no *splash*, given the size of crater there was a big splash  ;)

My point is - we know almost nothing about it, no records and no details are available. That's the difference: observed and recorded (documented) events we can study, on traces like Burckle crater we can speculate.
« Last Edit: 02/26/2013 12:01 pm by smoliarm »

Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #473 on: 02/26/2013 12:44 pm »
An interesting item on the BBC News website.  One group of scientists claim to have come up with a reasonable probable orbit for the Chelyabinsk Meteor.

There is a very large degree of uncertainty but, if their figures are correct, then the meteor originated in the Main Belt and had an orbit with a perihelion close to the Sun than the Earth.

It might be interesting to speculate the exact origins.  One obvious possibility is that it was perturbed out of its original orbit by the gravity of Jupiter lining up with other planets.  Alternatively, it could be the result of a comet/asteroid collision, in which case, there might be other objects (smaller, certainly and one or two perhaps larger) in similar orbits.  That might explain the San Francisco and Cuba meteorites - they could be part of the same cluster of objects.  It might be worthwhile to properly sweep the estimated orbits with high-power telescopes to see if there are any more unpleasant surprises waiting along that track.
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Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #474 on: 02/26/2013 01:08 pm »
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Offline R7

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #475 on: 02/26/2013 01:32 pm »
there is no case in the entire recorded history of meteorite tsunami.
Does Burckle crater not count?
Of course, it does not  :)
I am talking about historical records and about events

Exodus 14:19-29 "pillar of cloud", water recedes, rushes back ... hey who knows?
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Offline ChileVerde

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"I can’t tell you which asteroid, but there will be one in 2025," Bolden asserted.

Offline ChileVerde

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #477 on: 03/02/2013 11:43 pm »

Quote
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/06/22/1625254/us-military-blocks-data-on-incoming-meteors
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2009/07/post_30.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090612/full/459897a.html
http://www.space.com/6927-military-seeks-common-ground-scientists-fireball-data-flap.html

Current news about this:

Quote
http://www.space.com/19846-russian-meteor-fallout-military-satellites.html

Russian Meteor Fallout: Military Satellite Data Should Be Shared
by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist
Date: 18 February 2013 Time: 09:03 AM ET

 Piecing together the true nature of the meteor that detonated over Russia would benefit by observations likely gleaned by U.S. military spacecraft.

But for several years, that data has been stamped classified and not made available to the scientific community that study near-Earth objects (NEOs) and any potential hazard to Earth from these celestial interlopers.

In the wake of the Russian meteor explosion, there is a renewed call to make data gathered by both space systems and ground networks speedily available to scientists.

<considerable snip>

Apparently it was a done deal even before the Russian event:

Quote
http://www.space.com/19966-russian-meteor-asteroid-deflection-options.html

Russian Meteor Fallout: What to Do Next Time?
by Leonard David
Date: 26 February 2013 Time: 03:12 PM ET

This month's meteor detonation above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk and Earth's close shave with asteroid 2012 DA14 have kick-started conversations on lessons learned and what steps can be taken to prevent space rock impacts in the future.

One positive action item was actually in place prior to the dual asteroid events of Feb. 15: a new Memorandum of Agreement between the Air, Space, and Cyberspace Operations Directorate of the Air Force Space Command and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

That document, which was signed on Jan. 18 of this year, spells out specifics for the public release of meteor data from sources such as high-flying, hush-hush U.S. government space sensors.

The recent Russian meteor event occurred after completion of the newly signed agreement and data on the recent Chelyabinsk event had been released for scientific analysis, SPACE.com has been informed by NASA and the U.S. Air Force.

As a result of that agreement, NASA’s Near Earth Object (NEO) Observation Program is receiving information on bolide/fireball events "based on analysis of data collected by U.S. government sensors."

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/
"I can’t tell you which asteroid, but there will be one in 2025," Bolden asserted.

Offline go4mars

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #478 on: 03/06/2013 04:03 pm »
There is some speculation... that the Younger Dryas was punctuated by one or more North American impacts of regional affect.  Just south of one of the Great Lakes, there is what looks like a melt-path, clearly viewable on google earth satallite imagery, where it sorta looks like a bunch of the native rock there was flash-melted then flowed.  Also, there are a bunch of small lakes/depressions across the mid-east of North America that are perhaps impact related.  IIRC, there was even some shocked quartz found related to Younger Dryas impacts, and some regional char layers here and there.  Some suggest that an alternate theory for the giant floods that have been documented during the last glaciation, is flash-melting of enormous volumes of continental ice sheet, as opposed to ice bridges/plugs letting go.  There is debate about the conclusions and scale, but I think that in a couple decades the consensus will tip toward the impact hypothesis.   
To add to this, Bloody Creek Crater, Charity Shoal crater, Carossol crater are known examples.  Iturralde crater is in Bolivia, but might line up time-wise.  Melt glass in the middle east too, etc.     The great Lake Agassiz flood (flash melt of huge ice volumes may be responsible).  Hobbits went extinct (homo floresiensis). And some of the melted rock, not the stuff I was looking for, was just south of Lake Superior.


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/13/new-evidence-of-younger-dryas-extraterrestrial-impact/

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/13/E738.full
« Last Edit: 03/15/2013 12:26 pm by go4mars »
Elasmotherium; hurlyburly Doggerlandic Jentilak steeds insouciantly gallop in viridescent taiga, eluding deluginal Burckle's abyssal excavation.

Offline indaco1

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Re: Meteor Strikes Chelyabinsk, Russia
« Reply #479 on: 03/13/2013 09:16 pm »
I dare to make a question for the experts of astrodynamics.

Chelyabinsk meteor and 2012 DA14 had widely different trajectories.

Ok, but are they really unrelated?  It seems really coincidental.

I know nothing about celestial mechanics but I know that many strange phenomenons exists like orbital resonance, lagrange points, Trojans, quasi-satellites, horseshoe orbits,  interplanetary transport network, co-orbital moons etc.

In other words, could some undisclosed effect increase the probability that two asteroids having widely different trajectories approach Earth at the same time?

I know it's a complex matter...
Non-native English speaker and non-expert, be patient.

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