On December 23, yushu, Qinghai sky dropped “fireball”, caused everyone’s warm attention, from its extremely bright brightness, huge sound and from the air and the ground shock and other performance, this fireball is very big, so it in the end how big? Researchers li Mingtao, Zhou Binghong and Gong Zizheng from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have come up with a credible answer, initially concluding that the meteor was an Apollo-type asteroid with a diameter of 6.5 meters and a weight of about 430 tons.
Experts: The Qinghai meteor weighed 430 tons and flew from the asteroid belt
Qinghai yushu bolide appear later, NASA (NASA) neo research center released about it in one day after the detection data, when it hit the earth’s atmosphere at a rate of about 13.5 kilometers per second, the direction is from north to south, but with the Angle of the earth is very small, less than 5 degrees, into the atmosphere after the speed slows down, obviously increase the influence of gravity on it, began to fall.
Expert: The Qinghai meteor weighed 430 tons and flew from the asteroid belt
When it reached 31.9° N and 96.2° E, the first explosion occurred at a height of 35.5 km from the ground, followed by more than 10 consecutive air explosions, releasing energy equivalent to the explosion of about 9,500 tons of TNT. Therefore, the sound was like lightning shock, and the local people even felt the shock from the air. Before the first blast, the asteroid had traveled more than 600 kilometers through the thin gas in the upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, within 110 kilometers. Its temperature rose rapidly in a few seconds, and the difference in internal and external temperatures and pressures triggered the explosion.
Expert: The Qinghai meteor weighed 430 tons and flew from the asteroid belt
In up to 10 times the explosion, and forecasts the bolide produced a large number of meteorite fragments, land will become a meteorite fall to the ground, the covering area can be up to hundreds of square kilometers, including large meteorite fragments, from the point of explosion for the last time, the main body of this meteor is still there, and occupied the bolide a large proportion of the original quality, landing on the ground has also led to a small level earthquake, when detected by seismological bureau of qinghai seismograph, thus shows its landing site for its landing position can be determined for 32.36 ゜ north latitude, longitude 96.59 ゜.
Expert: The Qinghai meteor weighed 430 tons and flew from the asteroid belt
Ming-tao zhou and other researchers also analysis the asteroid’s orbit, original think its aphelion in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, perihelion within the earth’s orbit, also can say it is a “guest” from the asteroid belt, belong to the type of Apollo near-earth asteroids on type, this kind of the asteroid’s orbit perigee basic are within the earth’s orbit, so may have collided with earth, so this type of asteroids are very dangerous for the earth, the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago of an asteroid fit into this category, the number as many as thousands of star, already had more than 600 permanent serial number, It’s a near-Earth object that scientists are focusing on.
Experts: The Qinghai meteor weighed 430 tons and flew from the asteroid belt
The early days of such asteroids were probably the result of a short-period comet, so their orbits were more skewed. This orbit, and that the asteroid orbit is likely due to some kind of an asteroid impact from the matrix, and celestial bodies under the perturbation such as Jupiter is flung to the inner solar system, due to its orbit will pass by earth’s orbit, on December 23 more minutes at seven o ‘clock in the morning, when the orbital overlap, so the asteroid hit the earth, landing in the qinghai province yushu city, so people to see the meteors fire event there.
Expert: The Qinghai meteor weighed 430 tons and flew from the asteroid belt
The diameter of 6.5 meters, the small in the volume is quite large, if they see it as a sphere, so the volume is 143 cubic meters, the weight is considered of up to 430 tons, is greater than the weight of the international space station today, its density is about 3 tons per cubic meter, than glass (2.5 tons per cubic meter) or aluminum (2.7 tons per cubic meter) density slightly larger.
Expert: The Qinghai meteor weighed 430 tons and flew from the asteroid belt
So we can be in qinghai bolide events as the equivalent of a glass ball the size of 172 cubic meters, or 159 cubic meters of the size of the aluminum ball in seconds speed the speed of 13.5 kilometers from the sky, its potential energy is quite large, of course, the energy of 9500 tons of TNT equivalent to about 73% of the Hiroshima atomic energy, thanks to its energy is released in the air, even so, the main body and the meteorite fragments still carry large potential energy, but it landed in the northeast of qinghai-tibet plateau high altitude areas, if the drop in the densely populated place, consequence is unimaginable.
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