Chelyabinsk Meteor from Space
What are those strange, long clouds hovering over the limb of the Earth? They are streaks in the upper atmosphere left behind by a meteorite that flared over Chelyabinsk in Russia on Feb. 15.
The spectacular bolide that exploded over the Russian populace made international headlines when it was recorded by dozens of bystanders and dashcams. The event shook everyone in their morning routine and drew attention to the fact that meteors regularly impact the Earth. Because of the photographic ubiquity of the modern world, scientists have been able to estimate the meteor’s trajectory, speed, and initial size with fairly good confidence.
Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, aerospace engineer and geophysicist Simon R. Proud from the University of Copenhagen proposes using geostationary satellites to help monitor future impacts and other small objects entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The method could come in handy when ground observations or other evidence is sparse. Proud hunted down the Chelyabinsk meteor’s trail in images from three Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, which take photos of the Earth every 15 minutes.
By knowing the wind speeds in the upper atmosphere at the time of the event and using visual parallax, Proud was able to calculate the meteor’s orbital characteristics. The results are in good agreement with other methods and suggest that the technique could be used again in the future.
Image: Simon Proud/University of Copenhagen, original image is copyright EUMETSAT 2013Caption: Wired Science
