NEW Chelyabinsk-Chebarkul Meteorite Russia FALL CHONDRITE LL5 S4 1.9gr Original

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CHELYABINSK RUSSIA CHEBARKUL METIORITE (CHONDRITE LL5) (Detailed information on falling and meteorite structure) The object exploded in an air burst over Chelyabinsk Oblast at a height of about 15 to 25 km (9.3 to 16 mi), with 23.3 km (14.5 mi) being the most recent official burst height. It exploded with the generation of a bright flash, small fragmentary meteorites and a powerful shock wave. The atmosphere absorbed most of the object's energy, with a total kinetic energy before atmospheric impact equivalent to ~ 440 kilotons of TNT (~ 1.8 PJ), 20–30 times more energy than was released from the atomic bombs detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The object did not release all of its energy at once, with the total radiated energy of the fireball, which generated the main explosion, estimated to have emitted an energy equivalent to 90 kilotons of TNT(~ 0.4 PJ), according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.About 1,500 people were injured, two seriously. All of the injuries were due to indirect effects rather than the meteor itself, mainly from broken glass from windows that were blown in when the shock wave arrived, which came minutes after the superbolide's flash. Initially some 4,300 buildings, rising to over 7,200 such structures in six cities across the region were reported to have been damaged by the explosion.With an estimated initial mass of 11,000 tonnes, and measuring approximately 17 to 20 metres across, the Chelyabinsk meteor is the largest known object to have entered Earth's atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event and it is the only meteor confirmed to have resulted in a large number of injuries. The object had not been detected before atmospheric entry.The predicted close approach of the roughly 30-metre asteroid 2012 DA14 occurred about 16 hours later. The Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, Russian sources, the European Space Agency and NASA indicated the two objects could not have been related because the two asteroids had widely different trajectories. Atmospheric entry The visible phenomenon due to the passage of an asteroid or meteoroid through the atmosphere is called a meteor. If the object reaches the ground, then it is called a meteorite. During the Chelyabinsk meteor's traversal, there was a bright object trailing smoke, then an air burst (explosion) that caused a shock wave, the cause of the damage. The fragments entered dark flight (without the emission of light) and created a strewn field of meteorites.According to the Russian Federal Space Agency, preliminary estimates indicated the object was an asteroid moving at about 30 km/s in a "low trajectory." According to the Russian Academy of Sciences, the meteor then pushed through the atmosphere at a velocity of 15 km/s. The radiant (the apparent position of origin of the meteor in the sky) appears from video recordings to have been above and to the left of the rising Sun.Estimates of the size of the asteroid ranged from a diameter of 20 m (66 ft) to a few metres. In earlier reports, Russian scientists initially estimated the asteroid's mass at 10 tons before it entered Earth's atmosphere, and estimated that it broke apart 30–50 km (19–31 mi) above the surface. The United States space agency NASA estimated the diameter of the bolide at about 17–20 m and has revised the mass several times from an initial 7700 tonnes, then 10,000 tonnes and finally 11,000 tons. The air burst and shock wave registered on seismographs at magnitude 2.7.A sample found by Ural Federal University scientists at Lake Chebarkul. The object is part of the Chebarkul meteoriteThe Russian Geographical Society said the passing of the meteor over Chelyabinsk caused three blasts of different power. The first explosion was the most powerful, and was preceded by a bright flash, which lasted about five seconds. Altitude estimates ranged from 30–70 km, with an explosive equivalent of roughly 500 kilotonnes of TNT (2,100 TJ), and the hypocentre of the explosion was to the south of Chelyabinsk, in Yemanzhelinsk and Yuzhnouralsk. The s... read more

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