Analysis of the 2016 June 2 bolide event over Arizona

Abstract

On June 2, 2016 at 10h56m UTC, a $-20.4 \pm 0.2$ magnitude superbolide was observed over Arizona. Fragments were located a few days later and the meteorites were given the name Dishchii'bikoh. We present analysis of this event based on 3 cameras and a multi-spectral sensor observations by the SkySentinel continuous fireball-monitoring camera network, supplemented by a dash cam footage and a fragmentation model. The bolide began its luminous flight at an altitude of $100.2 \pm 0.4$ km at coordinates $\phi = 34.555 \pm 0.002^\circ$N planetographic latitude and $\lambda = 110.459 \pm 0.002^\circ$W longitude, and it had a pre-atmospheric velocity of $17.4 \pm 0.3$ km/s. The calculated orbital parameters indicate that the meteoroid did not belong to any presently known asteroid family. From our calculations, the impacting object had an initial mass of $14.8 \pm 1.7$ metric tonnes with an estimated initial diameter of $2.03 \pm 0.12$ m.