Chelyabinsk meteorite how many meters. Chelyabinsk meteorite: what scientists have learned in a year. Where did this come from?

Many thought it was a rocket flying by. A scientist Sergei Zamozdra immediately realized that it was a meteorite.

February 15, 2013. I'm standing by the window. The sensation of a flash is like a car blinking high beam. I immediately realized that it was a meteorite. Moreover, literally the day before I told students about such phenomena... I immediately ran to the window at the other end of the educational building to trace the trail of the falling fireball. I call the boss to tell him about the “alien”, and at that moment a shock wave arrives. Intuitively I grab the window frame so that it doesn’t fly out. The window was literally shaking under my palm,” he said on the radio “ TVNZ» Associate Professor, Department of Theoretical Physics, ChelSU, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Sergei Zamozdra.

- Many agreed that we were very lucky?

How to look. This is both luck and bad luck at the same time. Bad luck is obvious. People got hurt. There are injuries, shock. Material damage. Perhaps there were long-term consequences - someone developed, for example, chronic diseases.

We are lucky that we have a chance to study this cosmic body in detail. Previously, it was believed that space objects larger than 100 meters in size posed a threat. Ours was “only” 18, and such devastating consequences. Additional funds immediately appeared and research work intensified.

- By the way, where, from what Galaxy, did the fireball come to us?

There is no point in waiting for a meteorite from a distant Galaxy. In our home, in our solar system, there are enough such “cobblestones” - about half a million of them are already known. Telescopes are getting better, and we are able to find even more of these meteorites. It's a bit cramped for them in space. They collide periodically. And one of these fragments flew to us in the Southern Urals.

- Scientists and rocket scientists, it turns out, missed the meteorite?

Its speed was very high (18 km/sec - approx. ed.), and our protective equipment, I think, is not designed to record such a speed. Moreover, the meteorite was flying over the horizon, from the direction of the rising sun. It was very faintly noticeable. That's why they missed it.

WHY DOES A METEORITE LOSE WEIGHT?

- Four years have already passed. Are we still studying our meteorite or is everything already clear?

I didn't think the research would last this long. If we take the Tunguska phenomenon, then some fragments cannot be found. Most likely, it was a comet that exploded above the Earth and evaporated into dust. There is, in fact, nothing to study there.

We still have a bunch of stones left. They are sawed and cut. They study magnetic properties, the effects of shock waves, and chemical properties.

The glow itself is called a fireball. And meteorite fragments fall to Earth. The main body fell into Lake Chebarkul. An 8-meter crater was formed. Body size is about 80 centimeters.

Is it true that the meteorite, which is now exhibited in the Chelyabinsk regional local history museum, gradually losing weight, drying out?

This also came as a surprise to me. I believed that the meteorite was a monolith. It turned out that it also has pores. They absorbed moisture from Lake Chebarkul, where the meteor fell. The moisture gradually evaporates. I wouldn’t be surprised that the “newcomer” lost 10-20 kg in weight.

HOW TO DISTINGUISH A METEORITE FROM A SIMPLE STONE

- Has anything similar ever arrived on Earth over the past four years?

There was nothing comparable. There are cases of falling in Europe, in Khakassia, in Buryatia. The only thing I can say is that literally last year in the Argayash district Chelyabinsk region The villagers found a rather large fragment of a meteorite, weighing over five kilos. Its age is more than 100 years.

- How to distinguish space fragments from earthly pebbles? What do you advise?

These fragments have a special crust on top. Like a burnt pie from the oven. Take it in your hand. The density is very high. Such pieces are three to five times heavier, for example, than coal.

Look at the chips. Small light grains should be visible there. No more than a millimeter in diameter.

- What does our Chelyabinsk meteorite consist of? From gas, from ice?

Most likely made of rocky material. This is called chondrules - the oldest substance from which planets were born. A kind of frozen droplets. They stuck together, sintered, and shrank. The age of such pieces is billions of years.

- How much are pieces of meteorites worth today? What's the price?

Our Chelyabinsk meteorite is valued at approximately 500 rubles per gram. The price of large, heavy pieces can reach up to a million rubles or more.

- Not material value...

When you hold such a piece in your hands, you feel a connection with the cosmos, with some kind of eternity, infinity. It costs a lot. If I had enough money, I would probably start collecting such stones.

- Surely, you, as a researcher, have a piece of the Chelyabinsk meteorite?

Yes, I found fragments during a scientific expedition. This excitement is worse than hunting. Moreover, it was February. Snowdrifts. I found holes-funnels, and at the bottom - pieces of a meteorite. The weight of the heaviest one is approximately 130 grams. With a chicken egg.

DOESN'T IT FALL AT THE SAME POINT TWICE?

According to initial reports from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, nothing was found at the site of the meteorite fall on Lake Chebarkul. Why wasn't he discovered right away?

In a couple of seconds, the meteorite “broke through” a ten-meter layer of silt and reached the granite rocks at the bottom of the lake. It went in like a knife through butter. That's why they didn't find anything. Conditions too difficult for examination.

- They say that if the meteorite had entered the atmosphere at a different angle, the destruction could have been more significant?

Then he would have fallen, perhaps somewhere in Kazakhstan.

But if it was not stone, like ours, but iron-nickel, like a piece of stainless steel, then it would have fallen almost entirely. It didn't burn. And the crater would have been much more significant.

- What is the final power of the explosion? What is it comparable to?

Finally announced as 500 kilotons (kt). This is about three dozen Hiroshimas.

- A shell does not fall on the same point twice... Is there a possibility of history repeating itself in Chelyabinsk?

Yes, there is such a belief. But meteorites continue to fall. Albeit in other sizes. So anything is possible.

AND AT THIS TIME

Who wanted to take the Chelyabinsk meteorite

Take the test that Komsomolskaya Pravda did for the anniversary of the fall of the cosmic body. ()

HELP "KP"

Four years ago, on February 15 at approximately 9:20 local time, a meteorite fell near Chelyabinsk.

According to official data, 1,613 people were injured. Most of them were cut by glass broken by the blast wave.

According to various sources, from 40 to 112 people were hospitalized, two victims were placed in intensive care units. Not a single person died.

The shock wave also damaged buildings. total amount The damage amounted to about 1 billion rubles.

On October 16 of the same year, a fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteorite was taken from a depth of 13 meters - from the bottom of Lake Chebarkul. Now the exhibit is on display in the Chelyabinsk Regional Museum of Local Lore.

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More than 1,000 people were injured from the meteor shower near Chelyabinsk. In cities affected by a powerful explosion, telephone communications do not work, and windows in residential buildings were broken. The number of wounded is being determined Ruslan RAKHMANGULOV

The event that occurred on February 15 in the skies over the Urals instantly aroused the interest of the general public in the asteroid-comet danger. Someone rushed to rewatch “Armageddon”, someone turned to the comments of experts, and someone began to independently calculate the trajectory of the fallen object.

The fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite is an unprecedented event in world history, in terms of the amount of documentary material that has arrived (and continues to arrive!) at the disposal of scientists. Thousands of eyewitnesses, hundreds of photographs (including from space), dozens of videos. Data from special equipment (CTBTO system) were obtained. Meteorite fragments were found and sent for examination.

Thanks to this, the overall picture of the event became clear quite quickly. Estimates of the size and mass of the cosmic body, as well as preliminary calculations of its orbit, have appeared. Of course, in the future, as new data is processed, additions and clarifications will inevitably be made to this picture, but now we can take a quick look at it, knowing that the order of magnitude is unlikely to change.

Estimation of the mass of the Chelyabinsk meteorite

The first estimates of the mass of the Chelyabinsk meteorite appeared on the evening of February 15. At the same time, the discrepancies between the conclusions of domestic and Western experts were striking. According to the most general considerations, the maximum mass of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid in 100 tons, and the dimensions are of the order 4 meters. Alexey Pasechnik on the pages of his blog made estimates of body weight based on the energy of the light flash. The mass turned out to be equal 300-1000 tons, dimensions - 6-9 meters. Based on estimates of hypersonic braking of meteorites and comparing them with video recorder data, the most probable value, according to the astronomer, is a mass of the order of 300 tons. At the same time, Peter Brown from the University of Western Ontario determined body mass to be 7000-10000 tons and sizes in 15-17 meters- ten times more!

Why such a difference? Note that Brown based his estimate on data from CTBTO, an infrasonic sensor system designed to track nuclear tests. Based on the characteristics of the recorded infrasound waves, Brown obtained an estimate of the energy release along the entire path of the meteoroid. The number turned out to be impressive - 500 kilotons of TNT equivalent. This is 30 times more powerful than the bomb exploded over Hiroshima. Based on this assessment, Brown drew conclusions about the mass and size of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid. (It is not known whether Brown took into account the fact that CTBTO instruments are calibrated against air nuclear explosions, the characteristics of which differ markedly from the characteristics of the fireball explosion.)

A trace from a meteorite explosion. The photo was taken from the city of Satka. Photo: KMET RAS

Russian scientists believe that Brown's estimates provide an upper limit on the mass. Boris Shustov believes that the power of the explosion is greatly overestimated and amounts to no more than 100-200 kilotons (probably even less). The same Americans admit that we are still talking about estimates that need to be clarified. Nevertheless, they hastened to report precisely these parameters of the object to the UN.

Today, the following data on the Chelyabinsk meteorite seem to be the most realistic:

• Weight: 300-1000 tons
• Density: 2.2-3 g/cm³
• Dimensions: 6-10 meters
• Energy*: 30-100 kilotons

* - means total energy, released during the flight of the meteoroid.

Chebarkul meteorite

On February 15, reports were received that the site of a meteorite had been found. The media circulated footage of a 7-meter polynya on Lake Chebarkul. An expedition led by Viktor Grokhovsky from Yekaterinburg set off to the site of the supposed fall.

On the ice of the lake, the group found pebbles up to several centimeters in size. An analysis of the material carried out in Yekaterinburg showed that the material found was of cosmic origin. This is evidenced by the structure chemical composition and melting crust.

The first collection of samples of the Chebarkul meteorite. Photo: KMET RAS

The Chebarkul meteorite, as scientists dubbed the Chelyabinsk fireball, belongs to the group of stone meteorites. This is not surprising - more than 90% of all meteorites belong to this type. True, iron meteorites are found more often, since they are better preserved.

Chebarkul is classified as an ordinary chondrite (chemical type L or LL, petrological type 5). The iron content in it is no more than 10%. The stones contained olivine, which is common in meteorites, and the mineral troilite, which is rarely found on Earth, also typical of meteorites.

“Now that we have already examined several fragments of matter from the Chelyabinsk bolide, we can say why, as it approached the ground, it was explosively fragmented,- Viktor Grokhovsky commented on the results of the analysis. - It was too fragile, relatively light, and contained only up to 10 percent iron. The body could not withstand the overloads during sudden braking that arose during entry into the atmosphere.”

Cutting one of the meteorite samples. Here you can see round formations (chondrules) and cracks filled with impact melt. At the bottom there is a ruler for scale. Photo: KMET RAS

On February 23, a group of meteorites from the Ural Federal University found the first large fragment, weighing 1.8 kg. The stone was discovered on the territory of the Etkul region. It is now clear that a meteorite weighing hundreds of tons broke up in the air into thousands of small fragments that fell along the trajectory of the fall and the scattering ellipse. Finding large fragments will be difficult, but scientists are not losing hope.

At the bottom of Lake Chebarkul, there is probably a stone weighing 200-500 kg, but experts cannot yet examine the wormwood - employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations do not allow them to go to the hole. (The situation, we note, is completely crazy. We hope that in the near future it will be resolved in a positive way for scientists.)

Below is a short report from UrFU specialists about the first expedition.

Orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteorite

To date, two groups of scientists (one from Colombia, the second from the Czech Republic) have tried to determine the orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid. Having reconstructed the flight trajectory using publicly available video materials, they determined the orbital parameters of the cosmic body. The results indicate that the object belonged to the Apollo group - asteroids whose orbits go inside the Earth's orbit.

The scatter in the orbital elements is quite large (the parameters were calculated using the Monte Carlo method), but in general the results of both groups agree. Below are the data from both groups:

Please pass this questionnaire on to all your friends who saw the car fly from Irkutsk to Samara and from Baikonur to Perm! This is an important matter - additional evidence will help to restore with great accuracy the flight path, mass and size of the meteoroid, as well as its orbit.

On February 15, 2013, a meteor fell into Lake Chebarkul, as a result of which a large 7-meter hole in the ice arose. Around this hole, small fragments of a meteor resembling solid rock were found.

The caliber of the debris ranged from 0.4 to 2 cm. Professionals searching for meteors were not allowed into the hole by the military and emergency workers. Samples for analysis were delivered specifically to a secret laboratory.

There were several meteors. The main one and a number of minor ones. The explosion capacity of the main meteor that exploded after entering the atmosphere, according to some NASA experts, ranged from 250 to 600 kilotons.

Caliber of the Chelyabinsk meteor

The caliber of the Chelyabinsk meteor was about 17 meters, and its mass was approximately 10 thousand tons. Calculations show that the meteor entered earth's atmosphere and exploded at an altitude of 18 to 25 km. According to Russian experts, the meteor exploded much higher - at an altitude of 30-50 km.

“Actions of this magnitude occur once every 100 years,” announced an employee of the Laboratory’s program for the study of near-Earth space objects jet propulsion NASA Paul Chodas. He added that the line of movement of this meteor was significantly different from the flight path of asteroid 2012 DA14, therefore these 2 actions are in no way connected.

Chelyabinsk meteor became the largest recorded meteor since 1908, when the Tunguska meteorite fell in Siberia.

An early February morning in 2013 suddenly became tragic for 1,613 residents of Chelyabinsk and its environs. Such large quantity people affected by fallen meteorite There has never been a human population on Earth in history. During the wave impact, windows were broken in many buildings, trees were broken, and varying degrees the severity of the damage to people, as a result of which about 1,613 people were recognized as victims, of which, according to various sources, from 50 to 100 people ended up in hospitals. People who watched the meteorite fall that morning were simply shocked by the events taking place. The first versions of what was happening sounded like: a plane crash, a rocket crash, and even an alien attack...

On this moment The picture of the events of that tragic morning has been completely restored and it is reliably known when and where the meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk.

How it was

At approximately 9 a.m. on February 15, this “unexpected guest” appeared high in the sky above Chelyabinsk, resulting in a state of emergency being declared in Chelyabinsk and its surrounding areas. Previously, the same meteorite was observed by residents of other regions Russian Federation, but they were much luckier than the residents of Chelyabinsk, because it simply flew past them without causing absolutely any harm. For example, at 7.15 Moscow time or at 9.15 local time it was seen by residents of the Aktobe and Kostanay regions of Kazakhstan, and residents of Orenburg observed it amazing phenomenon, at 7.21 Moscow time. This meteorite was also clearly visible in Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Tyumen and their environs, and even 750 km from the crash site in the village of Prosvet, Volzhsky district, Samara region.

Bright flash

According to the US National Aeronautics and Research Administration outer space(NASA), a meteorite weighing about 10 tons and with a diameter of approximately 17 meters, with a speed of 17 km/s, entered the Earth’s atmosphere and after 32 seconds split into many parts. The destruction of the meteorite was accompanied by a series of explosions, the first of three explosions was the most powerful and caused the destruction. It was a bright flash, it lasted about five seconds, and a minute later it came to Earth in the form of a destructive wave. According to scientists, the destruction of the meteorite led to the release of energy, which was approximately equal to 100 to 500 kilotons of TNT equivalent. The center of the explosion was not the city of Chelyabinsk itself, but its region, which is located slightly to the south and is called Yemanzhelinsk - Yuzhnouralsk.

Places where fragments fell

As a result of research carried out by a specially created group, four places were discovered where meteorite fragments were supposed to be located. The first two places are located in the Chebarkul district of the Chelyabinsk region, the third in the Zlatoust district, and the fourth in the area of ​​Lake Chebarkul. The information that the meteorite was located in the lake was confirmed by fishermen who were at the crash site. From their stories, members of the search group learned that at the moment the meteorite fell into the lake, a column of water and ice about 3-4 meters high rose from it.

Second largest after Tunguska

As a result of the work carried out in the area of ​​Yemanzhelinsk and the village of Travniki, about a hundred fragments were found, and about 3 kg of fragments were collected in the lake area. All of them are currently being studied by scientists, according to whom, the meteorite that fell in Chelyabinsk is the second largest in size after the Tunguska meteorite that fell on Russian territory on June 30, 1908.

Full video from the scene of the event

On February 15, 2013, the Chelyabinsk region was hit by meteor Rain. At 9:20 local time, a meteorite exploded in the sky, 30-50 km from Earth. The shock wave broke windows in houses, hospitals, kindergartens, and schools. Shop windows burst. Meteorite fragments damaged buildings.

More than 1,000 people went to hospitals with cuts and bruises, some of them were hospitalized in serious condition. According to residents, a trail first appeared in the sky, as if from a jet plane, and then “the sun began to shine.”

“I taught a physical education class in kindergarten and saw a white stripe in the sky in the window, and then there was a bright flash,” Chelyabinsk resident Lyudmila Belkova told Gazeta.Ru. —

I shouted to the children: get down on the floor! Close your eyes! And then there were about five or six more explosions. One of the kids raised their head, but I shouted at them to close their eyes.”

The shock wave was very hot, residents said. And a metallic taste remained in the mouth even several hours after the explosion. Although the explosion occurred over the Chelyabinsk region, it was so bright that it was visible from Sverdlovsk region and even from Tyumen. Some of the meteorite debris fell on Chelyabinsk. The zinc plant was damaged - a fragment fell on its roof and broke it. Pieces of bricks littered the roadway.

In total, almost 7 thousand people were affected in the Chelyabinsk region. apartment buildings, 740 schools, 290 hospitals and clinics, 69 cultural and sports buildings. The head estimated the damage from the meteorite fall at almost half a billion rubles.

There were about 20 thousand rescuers to search for meteorite fragments. Soon meteorite fragments were found, two in the Chebarkul district of the Chelyabinsk region, another in Zlatoust. At the site of the supposed fall of a meteorite fragment near Lake Chebarkul, in the vicinity of the city of the same name, about 80 km from Chelyabinsk, the military discovered a crater with a diameter of about six meters. The radiation background at the funnel was normal.

When it became known that the crater was not dangerous, local residents moved towards it en masse.

Many of them went for fragments as souvenirs; meteorite fragments were put up for sale at online auctions at prices up to 100 thousand rubles per fragment. To avoid the removal of fragments from the country, we even had to connect.

Even the Chelyabinsk Patent Group CJSC tried to make money on the meterite by filing applications for registration of the trademarks “Mysterious meteorite”, “Ural meteorite” and “Chebarkul meteorite”.

An online survey of the population was conducted. Thousands of people have described what they saw and heard when the meteorite appeared.

“Already the intermediate processing yielded new facts that had eluded numerous photo and video cameras: several dozen independent witnesses indicated that during the flight of the car they heard a hissing sound, often comparing it to sparklers, and more than fifty people simply reported sounds without detailed description. This was a few minutes before the arrival of the shock wave,” one of the organizers of the survey, astronomer Stanislav Korotky, told Gazeta.Ru. - Because sound waves cannot travel distances of tens of kilometers in fractions of seconds, then this phenomenon must have a different nature.”

A little more than a week later, 2/3 of the damaged buildings were restored - glass was installed, walls were restored. And new fragments of the meteorite continued to be found. There were also large pieces, the size of a fist, but mostly small ones. In the first month, we managed to collect about 3.5 kg of fragments. But the biggest find lay ahead.

In the fall of 2013, a mass of 654 kg was lifted from Lake Chebarkul.

When lifted from the lake and weighed, it split into several parts; as a result, it was decided to consider the largest surviving fragment weighing 540 kg to be the main fragment. Subsequently, scientists clarified that it is actually 473 kg.

Analysis of the fragments showed: the meteorite belongs to the class of ordinary chondrites LL5 (the least common group of ordinary chondrites, with general content iron 19-22% and only 0.3-3% metallic iron), characterized by the shock fraction S4 (traces of moderate impact of shock waves) and the degree of weathering W0 (without visible traces of oxidation). Using isotope analysis, it was possible to find out that it is almost the same age as the Universe, its age was 4.56 billion years.

Czech scientists calculated that it amounted to 500 kilotons of TNT, which is 12 times more powerful than an explosion atomic bomb over Hiroshima. They also believe that it was once integral with the near-Earth 2.2-kilometer asteroid 999NC43, and then broke away from it.

British researchers determined that at the moment of passage the meteorite reached a peak brightness, 30 times higher than the brightness of the Sun. Moreover, in their opinion, the number of potentially dangerous meteorites like the one in Chelyabinsk is actually 10 times higher than previously thought.

A, senior Researcher The Institute of Geosphere Dynamics, with colleagues, found that the speed of the meteorite was 19 kilometers per second, its size was 18-20 meters, and its mass was 1.3 * 10 7 kilograms.

In the scientific community, interest in the event was enormous: the conference hall of the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute, where the first scientific reports on the meteorite were heard, experienced such excitement for last years perhaps only in the summer of 2012 at a report dedicated to the discovery of the Higgs boson.

In Russia, the Chelyabinsk meteorite has become a household name - many people compare it with it celestial bodies, approaching the Earth. In 2014, “A Light Touch of the Universe...”, released by the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore, and a triptych by a Ural painter were dedicated to him. Numerous recordings of the meteorite fall, made by video recorders, went viral on the Internet and gave rise to many jokes and questions abroad about why so many Russians have cameras in their cars.

The meteorite fragments are kept in the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore. According to the head of the department of theoretical physics at Chelyabinsk State University (CSU), Alexander Dudorov, today it is known that up to 95% of meteorite fragments found on earth “went to different hands,” including to foreigners, which complicates their study.