Image credit: Google Earth, NASA/JPL-Caltech › Larger view
From the WSJ (NASA JPL Statement follows):
The meteor that crashed to earth in Russia was about 55 feet in diameter, weighed around 10,000 tons and was made from a stony material, scientists said, making it the largest such object to hit the Earth in more than a century.
Large pieces of the meteor have yet to be found. However, a team from the Urals Federal University, which is based in Yekaterinburg, collected 53 fragments, the largest of which was 7 millimeters, according to Viktor Grokhovsky, a scientist at the university.
Data from a global network of sensors indicated that the disintegration of the Russia fireball unleashed nearly 500 kilotons of energy, more than 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
It is the largest reported meteor since the one that hit Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, according to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The agency’s new gauge of the meteor’s size was a marked increase from its initial estimate.
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Here is the NASA JPL statement:
New information provided by a worldwide network of sensors has allowed scientists to refine their estimates for the size of the object that entered that atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, at 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15).
The estimated size of the object, prior to entering Earth’s atmosphere, has been revised upward from 49 feet (15 meters) to 55 feet (17 meters), and its estimated mass has increased from 7,000 to 10,000 tons. Also, the estimate for energy released during the event has increased by 30 kilotons to nearly 500 kilotons of energy released. These new estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world – the first recording of the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away from Chelyabinsk. The infrasound data indicates that the event, from atmospheric entry to the meteor’s airborne disintegration took 32.5 seconds. The calculations using the infrasound data were performed by Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
“We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average,” said Paul Chodas of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “When you have a fireball of this size we would expect a large number of meteorites to reach the surface and in this case there were probably some large ones.”
The trajectory of the Russia meteor was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, which hours later made its flyby of Earth, making it a completely unrelated object. The Russia meteor is the largest reported since 1908, when a meteor hit Tunguska, Siberia.
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130215.html
Preliminary information indicates that a meteor in Chelyabinsk, Russia, is not related to asteroid 2012 DA14, which is flying by Earth safely today.
The Russia meteor is the largest reported since 1908, when a meteor hit Tunguska, Siberia. The meteor entered the atmosphere at about 40,000 mph (18 kilometers per second). The impact time was 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15), and the energy released by the impact was in the hundreds of kilotons.
Based on the duration of the event, it was a very shallow entry. It was larger than the meteor over Indonesia on Oct. 8, 2009. Measurements are still coming in, and a more precise measure of the energy may be available later. The size of the object before hitting the atmosphere was about 49 feet (15 meters) and had a mass of about 7,000 tons.
The meteor, which was about one-third the diameter of asteroid 2012 DA14, was brighter than the sun. Its trail was visible for about 30 seconds, so it was a grazing impact through the atmosphere.
It is important to note that this estimate is preliminary, and may be revised as more data is obtained.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Related: A problem that is bigger than global warming
I just read that the bigger asteroid that passed by Earth saw its orbit modified by the encounter and will strike Earth in 2080 unless its orbit is further modified.
http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/021813-644829-asteroid-2012-da-14-missed-earth-narrowly-but-will-return.htm?p=2
But the truth is we don’t really know if this was the largest one, I don’t think. Largest one to fall over a populated area where people could notice it, maybe. But something like this could have fallen in parts of Antarctica, out in the ocean, or even over parts of Siberia that are not populated.
Cui bono says:
“…..his advisors insisted that the stones were observed falling from the sky and that two Yale professors investigating the incident vouched for its truth.
Thomas Jefferson, President of the United states, responded with great skepticism: “Gentlemen, I would rather believe that two Yankee professors would lie than believe that stones fall from heaven.”
Yep, those damned observations, always upsetting the consensus.”
Yeah, good story, but at least the observations eventually triumphed, which is the way science is supposed to work.
I wish I could go into deep sleep and come back in 100 years to see how the whole climate scare pans out. If the temperature doesnt rise much, then the alarmists will go the way of Jefferson above.
Thanks Paul, scratch that thought. 😉 I briefly searching for something to say yes or no and couldn’t seem to find the details. Well, that was truly some coincidence then.
I agree with Snake Oil Baron. I wonder whether Russia is being used as a target for some huge version of one of those circus acts in which the blindfolded knife thrower tries to hit the rotating wheel.
Mr. Artday: conversion of kinetic to thermal energy
William Abbott Feb 18 5:06PM
We can hear them. The low frequency sound, easily, travels around the world. No need for telescopes or radars. The sound reaches multiple stations, and just as siesmographs we get direction, energy, duration etc. In the end we don’t have to trust the scientist, a good helping of math is “all” plus data is all that is needed.
OssQss Feb 18 7:29PM
300KT to 500KT. Look up what JPL said about. spaceweather.com has a little info about it.
EBH, Feb 18 7:48PM
Most of it vaporized, rest scattered, but there is a photo of a 45′ hole in a lake, so that is one big chunk.
mr.artday. Feb 18 7:50PM
Friction and the thick atmosphere at 12-15 miles combines to superheat it. The pressure builds up and at some point shatters the rock, at that moments all the individual pieces vaporize even faster…. BIG Explosion. Some pieces remain intact, surviving the friction and pressure and slow down to make it to the ground.
I had a meteorite pass me while driving south on I-35 one night. It looked like a ball of fire with a tail of sparks traveling level to the ground and came past me like I was a spectator at the Indy 500, before it went out in a blaze of glory.
I didn’t run off the road, or anything.
mjk says:
February 18, 2013 at 6:40 pm
So we now accept the analysis of the NASA scientists do we. How ironic.
– – –
There has been a lot of agreement with NASA here on WUWT. See for example:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/23/team-of-ex-nasa-scientists-concludes-no-imminent-threat-from-man-made-co2/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/10/hansen-and-schmidt-of-nasa-giss-under-fire-engineers-scientists-astronauts-ask-nasa-administration-to-look-at-emprical-evidence-rather-than-climate-models/
mjk says:
February 18, 2013 at 6:40 pm
You’re being too literal, mjk, thinking NASA is some monolith. It’s like wikipedia, some things you can generally trust, and other things, you’d be crazy to trust.
For example, the NASA scientists who calculate meteorite orbits have no axe to grind about orbits, no political stance about future meteorite increases, they don’t go out and get arrested protesting for more telescopes. So yes, I’d trust them to calculate the trajectory and the weight.
James Hansen of NASA, on the other hand, I wouldn’t trust with a sharpened popsicle stick …
You’ve just got to know the players.
w.
Hmm… I am distressed. I can NOT remember the name of the 1950s sci-fi film where some earth scientists were taken to a planet “millions of miles away” which was under attack by enemies who basically guided meteorites down through the atmosphere to strike at their majestic alien cities. I had *thought* it was “20 million miles to earth” but IMDB shows that as being some sort of giant lizard movie that I know I’ve never even seen.
Anyone?
Man putting all that extra CO2 into the atmosphere has increased the gravitational field of the earth. The science is settled.
I bet 97% of Huffington Post readers would actually believe that.
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Correction to my previous post.
97% of Huffington Post readers WILL actually believe that.
You heard it here first.
nearly 500 kilotons of energy
Especially since we are not dealing with E = mc^2, energy should be expressed in joules and not mass.
A question: How much larger will the UAH anomaly be for February be due to this input?
@Ossqss
>Hummmm, so going from 49′ to 55′, takes us from 7k to 10k tons,
It went up after homogenisation of the data.
What sets my questions buzzing is when people make statements without complete evidence to back them.
Have we been able to track all impacts from space for this period? Or better yet for several hundred years so we can estimate frequency of debris falling down on us? Not to mention that part of the frequency of space debris depends on supposedly empty space that our solar system passes through as we rotate around the galaxy.
Just because earth has been traveling through calm empty space doesn’t mean it will always be so.
Oh yeah! There’s a fully fledged technology that’s been in active use for a long series of time tracking space debris explosions… Not!
Nor has this technology been exposed to repeated verifications that match sensor readings to accurate identification regarding all explosions. Given the amount of thunder and sonic booms that the system has to white noise out, only significantly larger explosions are followed up on.
Which leaves the reality of; these things smack into earth as it whizzes through space and only heaven knows how often. Think of these impacts as equivalent to bugs hitting your windshield. Sure you can work out a frequency rate for how often the big bugs smack; but that ratio is only post tense valid for when, where, space and time already past. All ratios are invalid upon entering present future tense and fully dependent on space objects (or bugs) in ones flight path.
Or, that CNN is correct and these exploding space debris are caused by global warming… /sarc
(The Willis effect)
It was a glorious lazy hot summer day and I was riding my motorcycle rather joyfully down some New England country road. My shirt open to the wind (no leathers), and I was loving how cool it felt in the heat, (no A/C at home either) . Cresting a small rise in the road between cornfields on one side and forest on the other I had just time to glimpse a large black and yellow object sail out of sight below my nose and into my shirt, smack into my chest and slide around to the side.
Yes, I was frantic to find the bumblebee as it turned out to be, control the bike, slow up and stay alive but unstung. Common sense and straight thinking that a large slow flying exoskeleton creature with a soft interior would smash on me similar to colliding with a windshield. But straight thinking is a little difficult to achieve when we have large yellow and black European wasps in the same area and they’re much tougher and capable of stinging repeatedly. Stinging insect identification at 55 miles per hour (88 kmh) is not my strong point.
Now if CNN and the alarmists can only devise some leathers to protect earth to suit up for with…
Movie: This Island Earth
There is a simulator online courtesy the Earth Impacts Program. Running known numbers thru it from the Russian bolide give an inbound velocity on the order of 35 km/sec (or a little under) for a stony body. I am wondering about a cometary origin for this, as it was moving very fast. Will keep looking for a possible cometary family to connect it to.
Simulator can be found at the link below. There are others out there. Cheers –
http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects
[Ha ha ha! This mod is laughing at all the same references! — mod.]
These things -are- more common than that. Someone mentioned the 1972 graze. I’ve seen the picture of it over the Tetons. And there have been reports of mushroom clouds over the ocean seen by airline pilots – but no radiation – assumed then to be events similar to this one.
cui bono says:
February 18, 2013 at 7:42 pm
“…What is important is that the story reflects the mindset of a scientific community struggling to reconcile observation with entrenched belief. …”
For what it is worth , I remember hearing a story in similiar vein , the gist of which is that the french national science academy had organised a conference whose theme was approximately ” No way stones can fall from heavens” .i.e the general consensus adhered to by the majority of the scholars at that time. While it was going on a meteorite event over Paris happened during the same time, and fist sized pebble falling from the heaven punctured the roof of an auditorium ( happiliy no one was hurt ) where an esteemed professor was just putting the finishing lines of his conclusive proof that such occurence were impossible.
I of course do not know weather this one is a myth or has some strands of reality infused in it, but it stuck somwhere in the back of my mind, as an example of a funny example of how counterargument to the dominating consensus might happen to be driven home.
Speaking as to just what happened, does anyone know a jump to where the state vectors or orbit parameters might have already been estimated and calculated for the meteorite on the web? I understand 2012 DA14’s is on the Horizon.
Would like to program those two into my ephemeris software and get a slow-mo visualization. With the Earth clipping along our orbit at some 67,000 mi/hr it gets hard to visualize just how it was oriented if it entered at 40,000 mi/hr in the morning and 2012 DA14 was heading from south to north. Knew I just might want that program some day for something. 😉
Poor Chelyabinsk 🙁
That area is home to the Mayak facility that bred plutonium for the Soviet Union. There were so many accidents there that it has more radioactive contamination and more health consequences than Chernobyl. It is the place Gary Powers was attempting to surveil before his U2 was shot from the sky.
The plant is still active. The most recent known accident was in 2008.
michaeljmcfadden said:
February 18, 2013 at 9:14 pm
I can NOT remember the name of the 1950s sci-fi film where some earth scientists were taken to a planet “millions of miles away” which was under attack by enemies who basically guided meteorites down through the atmosphere to strike at their majestic alien cities…
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I looked it up on my interocitor; the movie was “This Island Earth”.
michaeljmcfadden, check here maybe: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science-fiction_films_of_the_1950s, might see a familiar title?
Regarding us missing meteors, there was a window between the Tunguska blast and the point when the nations of the world began listening for nuclear bomb detonations where it could have been missed, but it’s not a large window.
The only thing that I can think of was the signal detected over south africa by monitoring stations/satellites/a plane (I think)… yup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident
Glad someone else corrected 30,000 km/s, that’s WAY beyond solar escape velocity, something like that would fall under the heading of “weapon of mass destruction” and be pretty difficult to explain as anything but a deliberately accelerated and launched weapon.
the actual speed being 17~ km/s is much more sensible.
Also: meteor means it is in the atmosphere, meteorite means you found a piece of it on the ground.
michaeljmcfadden,
The circles that drunks in bars thrown little pointy darty things at are usually made of cork not cardboard. 🙂
@michaeljmcfadden: This Island Earth.
H.R. (off fishing in Florida),
” but there are an awful lot of installations scattered around the world by certain missile-paranoid nations looking for large, fast moving objects. One would think they would pick up 3 times as many “Gee-golly-whiz-whu-waz-DAT! Awwww… it just fell in the ocean so we’ll never know”s as are reported.”
Shh, those installations are supposed to be secrets. If they were detecting meteors I think you are assuming a bit much in suggesting that they would tell anyone about it. If the “bad guys” knew they were picking up meteors they might think to launch an attack during one of the major annual meteor showers.
🙂
The largest 2 known. 20 could have come down in the Pacific, or Antarctica, or the North Pole and no one would have known.