Abstract
In recent years, nine small near-Earth asteroids were discovered a few hours before the collision with the Earth: these are about one metre in diameter objects that have all disintegrated in the atmosphere, generating bright fireballs without causing damage. In some cases, several meteorites have been recovered. In cases like these, it is not always possible to triangulate the fireball generated by the asteroid’s fall to circumscribe the strewn field position. For this reason, it can be important to compute a strewn field “ab initio”, i.e. propagating the asteroid’s trajectory in the atmosphere starting from the initial conditions obtained directly from the heliocentric orbit, coupled with some reasonable hypothesis about the mean strength and the mass of the fragments to “sample” the strewn field. By adopting a simple fragmentation model coupled with a real atmospheric profile, useful results can be obtained to locate the strewn field, as we will show for the recent falls of asteroids 2024 BX1, 2023 CX1 and 2008 TC3. It was possible to locate the strewn field of our study cases with an uncertainty of the order of one kilometre with the mean strength in the range 0.5–5 MPa and the mass of the possible final fragments in the 1 g–1 kg range. We have also verified that a pancake phase after fragmentation is unnecessary to locate the strewn field for a small asteroid fall.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
