A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid

ORIGINAL: Cornell Universidad de Antioquia

A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid

Jorge I. Zuluaga, Ignacio Ferrin

(Submitted on 21 Feb 2013)

In February 15 2013 a medium-sized meteoroid impacted the atmosphere in the region of Chelyabinsk, Russia. After its entrance to the atmosphere and after travel by several hundred of kilometers the body exploded in a powerful event responsible for physical damages and injured people spread over a region enclosing several large cities. We present in this letter the results of a preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid. Using evidence gathered by one camera at the Revolution Square in the city of Chelyabinsk and other videos recorded by witnesses in the close city of Korkino, we calculate the trajectory of the body in the atmosphere and use it to reconstruct the orbit in space of the meteoroid previous to the violent encounter with our planet. In order to account for the uncertainties implicit in the determination of the trajectory of the body in the atmosphere, we use Monte Carlo methods to calculate the most probable orbital parameters. We use this result to classify the meteoroid among the near Earth asteroid families finding that the parent body belonged to the Apollo asteroids. Although semimajor axis and inclination of the preliminary orbit computed by us are uncertain, the rest of orbital elements are well constrained in this preliminary reconstruction.

Comments: 10 pages, 3 figures. Further details, updates, images, plots and videos available at: this http URL

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)

Cite as: arXiv:1302.5377 [astro-ph.EP]

(or arXiv:1302.5377v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)

Submission history

From: Jorge Zuluaga [view email] 
[v1] Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:17:11 GMT (756kb)

Which authors of this paper are endorsers?

The Chelyabinsk Meteoroid

Reconstructing the Orbit

In February 15 2013 a medium-sized meteoroid impacted the atmosphere in the region of Chelyabinsk, Russia. After its entrance to the atmosphere and after travel by several hun- dred of kilometers the body exploded in a powerful event responsible for physical damages and injured people spread over a region enclosing several large cities. This project is intended at a complete reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid.

In a preliminary attempt we use evidence gathered by one camera at the Revolution Square in the city of Chelyabinsk and other videos recorded by witnesses in the close city of Korkino, we calculate the trajectory of the body in the atmosphere and use it to reconstruct the orbit in space of the meteoroid previous to the violent encounter with our planet. In order to account for the uncertainties implicit in the determination of the trajectory of the body in the atmosphere, we use Monte Carlo methods to calculate the most probable orbital parameters.

We use this result to classify the meteoroid among the near Earth asteroid families finding that the parent body belonged to the Apollo asteroids. Although semimajor axis and inclination of the preliminary orbit computed by us are uncertain, the rest of orbital elements are well constrained in this preliminary reconstruction.

When using any of the material published here please cite:

Zuluaga, J.I. and Ferrin, I. "A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid.", ArXiv e-prints, arxiv:1302.5377 February 2013.

This is the latest result:

Virtual exploration of the orbit:

Related papers Zuluaga, J. I., and I. Ferrin 2013. A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid. ArXiv e-prints. [ arXiv | download ] This component is not available in English. Updates SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24 2013. A plot showing the evolution of aparent magnitude of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid as a function of time for the previous 10 days has been produced. See download section. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24 2013. The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams of the International Astronomical Union released yesterday Saturday February 23 2013 a telegram entitled "TRAJECTORY AND ORBIT OF THE CHELYABINSK SUPERBOLIDE" by Jiri Borovicka, Pavel Spurny, and Lukas Shrbeny, Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences, Ondrejov, Czech Republic, reporting the precise computation of the atmospheric trajectory and velocity of the superbolide of Chelyabinsk. The complete text of the telegram is available here:  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mpml/message/28136 Although no details have been provided yet by the Czech group, the methods and data used by them are similar to that used by Zuluaga & Ferrin (2013). The resulting orbital elements coincide also with that of the "median" orbit computed by the Colombian Researchers.  Although the result would seem definitive an independent verification of the results as well as a publication of their methods and sources are still required. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22 2013. The American Meteoritic Society (AMS) published another preliminary estimation of the orbital elements. Their results are available in this entry: http://www.amsmeteors.org/2013/02/large-daytime-fireball-hits-russia. The elements estimated by them are in pretty correspondence to that published by Zuluaga & Ferrin (2013). A comparative table of both sets of elements are published in the Wikipedia Entry for "2013 Russian Meteor Event". Feb 24, 2013 (14:37)., by webadmin Videos The reconstruction performed here (and shown above) is based originally in the method proposed by Stefen Geen in his blog Ogle Earth. These are the videos used in the reconstruction: Camera across the street in the Central Chelyabinsk Square (Revolution Square)