Abstract
A space object exploded near the city of Chelyabinsk on February 15, 2013. Meteorite fragments reached the Earth’s surface, and accordingly we may consider this space object to have been a meteorite. However, this event showed a number of features not corresponding to the destruction of a meteorite. The space object began to disintegrate at an altitude of 70 km when pressure (dynamical loads) on its front surface was ~6.7 × 103 N·m-2. The substance from the object’s surface was not blown off by drops, as at ablation, but was dumped by jets over a distance up to 1 km. The trail of this space object visually reminded us of a jet aircraft’s contrail, made up of water. But there is no enough water at altitudes of 30 - 70 km. It may be assumed that the object itself delivered water to these altitudes. The calculation of gas rise over the trail showed that the temperature in some parts of this trail was about 900 K. Heating of large masses of gas can be explained not only by the release of kinetic energy of the space object, but also by combustion processes of its substance. Thus, it was concluded that the meteorite could have been delivered by a comet.
Highlights
A space object give name “Chelyabinsk meteorite” exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere on February 15, 2013
A number of inconsistencies were discovered in the process of studying this fall that makes it possible to doubt the meteorite nature of this space object
Investigation of the meteorite fragments showed that some of them were directly irradiated by streams of solar cosmic rays [11]
Summary
A space object give name “Chelyabinsk meteorite” exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere on February 15, 2013. Fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteorite which were defined as ordinary chondrite landed on the ground This space object is a priori considered as a meteorite with an initial diameter of ~19 m. A number of inconsistencies were discovered in the process of studying this fall that makes it possible to doubt the meteorite nature of this space object. It was hypothesized [1, 2] that the Chelyabinsk meteorite was only a small part of the space object. We discuss some features of the destruction of this space object, which allow us to make a conclusion about the nature of this body
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