A space object exploded near the city of
Chelyabinsk on February 15, 2013. Meteorite fragments reached the Earth’s surface, and accordingly we may consider this space object to have been
a meteorite. However, this event showed a number of features not corresponding
to the destruction of a meteorite. The space object began to disintegrate at an
altitude of 70 km when pressure (dynamical loads) on its front surface was ~6.7×103 N·m-2. The substance from the object’s surface
was not blown off by drops, as at ablation, but was dumped by jets over a
distance up to 1 km. The trail of this space object visually reminded us of a
jet aircraft’s contrail, made up of water. But there is no enough water at
altitudes of 30 - 70 km. It may be assumed that the object
itself delivered water to these altitudes. The calculation of gas rise over the
trail showed that the temperature in some parts of this trail was about 900 K.
Heating of large masses of gas can be explained not only by the release of
kinetic energy of the space object, but also by combustion processes of its
substance. Thus, it was concluded that the meteorite could have been delivered
by a comet.
References
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Borovicka, J., Spurny, P., Brown, P., Wiegert, P., Kalenda, P., Clark, D. and Shrbeny, L. (2013) The Trajectory, Structure and Origin of the Chelyabinsk Asteroidal Impactor. Nature, 503, 235-237.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12671
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