[March 2: Read the follow-up article, Comparing paths with the pros in Google Earth]
[March 9: Read the follow-up article, Three trajectory models of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid compared]
[April 5: Help scientists to more accurately calculate the trajectory. Visit www.russianmeteor2013.org to contribute videos or help with the analysis.]
Like many others, I was absolutely astounded by the meteor strike over Chelyabinsk when I woke on Friday morning. One silver lining to our self-surveilling society is that an event of this magnitude is certain to get caught on the myriad of always-on dash- and webcams. I for one could not get enough of the videos.
Might it be possible to use this viral footage with Google Earth to have an initial go at mapping the meteorite’s trajectory? I was pondering this question some 2,500km away from Chelyabinsk when I chanced upon this video:
That place is easy to find — it’s Revolution Square at the absolute center of Chelyabinsk, looking almost directly south. It is also easy to measure — the distance between the two central light poles is 32 meters, as per a quick measurement in Google Earth, while the five lanes of traffic going right to left (west to east) measure 19 meters. From this it is easy to estimate the height of the light poles to be around 12 meters — an estimate corroborated by numerous panoramas in Google Earth showing people next to these lamp posts, giving us added data points.
Using all this information, I was able to do some image analysis in Photoshop on the lengths and angles of the shadows as the meteor streaked across the sky. Here’s an animated gif showing the result of that:
The ensuing grade-school mathematics (SOHCAHTOA!) resulted in three lines of sight at three instants a few seconds apart. (For the sake of the record, I roughly calculated them to be towards 122 degrees at an inclination of 33 degrees at 9:20:28.7, towards 187 degrees at an inclination of 40 degrees at 9:20:32.2, and towards 222 degrees at an inclination of 32 degrees at 9:20:33.4. These times are the video’s own timeline, though they appear to correlate closely with the timelines of other videos.)
This allowed me to draw an inclined plane in Google Earth that should include the meteor’s path, though it does not allow me to know the distance of the meteor from central Chelyabinsk, nor its speed.
However, we have more clues. We know a fragment of the meteor landed in Lake Chebarkul, roughly 70km WSW of Chelyabinsk. Gratifyingly, the inclined plane generated from the above video intersects with the crash site. Also useful was the estimate by the Russian Academy of Sciences that the meteorite hit the Earth’s atmosphere at around 50,000 km/h, shattering at an altitude of 30-50km. If that was the rough speed of the meteor as it burned up in the video, then the 4.7 seconds between the first and last shadow measurements would have seen it travel 65 km. Fitting a 65km line between these two lines of sight allows us to draw a straight line path for the meteor towards the crash site, with the first measured time yielding a height of 29km, which is the moment the meteor first brightened enough to give a clear shadow.
Download the visualizations for this as a KMZ file to open in Google Earth. Do play with the opacity slider of the overlay to check the alignments yourself — it’s most of the fun.
How does this data square with the Meteosat 9 image that has being doing the rounds? At first glance, not well: Overlaying the image in Google Earth and aligning the border with Kazakhstan shows a 240km contrail that appears to end some 75km to the ENE of Chelyabinsk, even though the path when traced on the ground also leads directly to Lake Chebarkul.
At first, I thought the image might have been taken 5 minutes earlier, before the meteor streaked straight across Chelyabinsk proper, because the image’s metadata gives us a time of 3:15:00Z, or UTC, which is 6 hours behind Chelyabinsk time. But no meteor is going to take 5 minutes to traverse 75km, so we’ll just have to live with the time discrepancy. Webcams are not atomic clocks.
Much more interesting is the fact that if you look at the position of Meteosat 9, which is in a geostationary orbit, you see that Chelyabinsk is near the horizon of its view of Earth. This leads to extreme foreshortening in the snapshot of the meteor’s contrail:
(Notice the outline of the Sea of Azov in the foreground. Here is another version showing the thermal impact (source).)
The version used in the overlay is an enhanced view of this image, taken from the same angle. (The blacked-out upper right-hand corner of the overlay is behind the horizon as seen from Meteosat 9.). If you simulate this view of Chelyabinsk in Google Earth, you see that in fact, the contrail aligns quite nicely over Chelyabinsk considering that it would be 30km high and at such an extreme angle over the horizon. So the 4.7 seconds of maximal brightness (with contrail) do get to happen just south of Chelyabinsk proper, as per the above video, and without contradiction by Meteosat 9.
I feel this post would not be complete without some big caveats: I am not a trained scientist; I don’t know if meteors travel through the atmosphere in straight lines or at constant speeds (I assume they don’t, but that it doesn’t matter for back-of-the-envelope type calculations). Still, it is satisfying to know that with judicious use of Google Earth, YouTube and Photoshop you can get quite far in the meteor simulation game. I can’t wait to see what the professionals come up with.
UPDATE 2013-02-16: Via SebastienP in the comments comes another triangulation, comparing the calculated path from the KMZ file with the view from another dash cam. It holds up pretty well!
(Source)
UPDATE 2013-02-17: In this comment, some smart calculations by Sean Mac are confirmed by a video he’s found showing the contrail crossing almost exactly above the southern suburb of Yemanzhelinsk. I found the exact vantage point of the video he references in Google Earth by connecting this Panoramio photo to this view in the video.
This suggests the meteor’s trajectory towards Earth was higher and steeper along the inclined plane of sight derived from the central Chelyabinsk vantage point than the initial calculation suggested. That’s not surprising, as that calculation was based on an initial estimate of the velocity by the Russian Academy of Sciences, which now appears to have been on the low side.
I’ve now added a second path for the meteor in Google Earth, together with the location of the vantage point in Yemanzhelinsk, in this KMZ file. Open it as a complement to the first KMZ file to see what I would consider to be an upper bound (green) for the trajectory along the same inclined plane, with a new likeliest path (red).
“Looking up” in Google Earth from the vantage point in Yemanzhelinsk (I can because I have a 3D mouse from 3DConnexion), I get a very similar angle of view of the contrail when framed by the NNW axis of the buildings on that square.
A further video showing the perspective from the town of Korkino further north (included in the new KMZ file) shows that the meteor passed a little to the south of there, allowing for a pretty accurate triangulation. (Thanks to Robin Whittle and liilliil in the comments for the heads up.)
UPDATE 2013-02-22: OK, so this is kind of special: An astrophysics paper has just been submitted to ArXiv.org that models the orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteor, referencing this blog post as a starting point: A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid by Jorge I. Zuluagaa and Ignacio Ferrin. Details are here, and here comes the resulting animation:
[March 2: Read the follow-up article, Comparing paths with the pros in Google Earth]
[March 9: Read the follow-up article, Three trajectory models of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid compared]
[April 5: Help scientists to more accurately calculate the trajectory. Visit www.russianmeteor2013.org to contribute videos or help with the analysis.]
Stefan,
This video I sent you earlier where the smoke trail seems to pass overhead is from Yetkul about 15km SE of Korkino.
The video starts at this location
http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=54.8217&lon=61.5844&z=18&l=0&m=s
It is interesting that 26 seconds into the video, the camera looks WNW, showing a tall tower and the smoke trail.
If the smoke trail passed through the zenith, then a line drawn through the vertical axis of the tower, and a line drawn along the smoke trail, should intersect at the zenith.
What is required is a photo montage joining the images together as the camera pans up along the smoke trail past the zenith to the ESE.
Could you help with this please.
Great article! Very interesting! I live in Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk residents have witnessed the historic event. It should be noted that at first we thought it was a terrorist attack, or a plane crash. The windows in homes, offices, shops, schools and hospitals were broken by the shock wave. Everyone was scared! We are all lucky!
Stefan,
If you look at the Yemanzhelinsk video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64gXz9W2oyQ
A line drawn along the vertical axis of the light pole and a line drawn along the smoke trail diverge towards the zenith, making a large angle.
Therefore the smoke trail passed well north of Yemanzhelinsk and not a little north as has been suggested.
Agreed that the contrail passed north of Yemanzhelinsk, but we also know it passed south of Korkino – so my red line more or less splits the difference.
It passed over Yetluk/Etluc/Etluk.
The great work. See the locations places in the table at http://meteorites.ru/menu/press-e/yuzhnouralsky2013-e.php . Maybe the shadows on video near Miass school could help to correct the model.
Great collection, thanks. Glad to see the location of the hole pinpointed in the lake.
Just 4 of the useful resources I have found online recently:
*Interesting NYTimes article on variation in damage and infrasound discussion:
In Russia, Ruins and Property Spared by Meteor, Side
by Side
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/world/europe/in-russia-property-ruined-and-spared-by-meteor-share-space.html
*Attempted list of all video:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/foo/4546400.htm
*Attempted list of all unique/unedited video:
https://web.duke.edu/isis/gessler/meteorites/chelyabinsk.htm
*A very familiar sounding description of a meteor burst from 1642.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#.22Cannon_fire.22_following_meteorite_impacts
“In an instant was heard first a hideous rumbling in the air, and presently after followed a strange and fearful peal of thunder; it maintained the fashion of a fought battle. It began thus: first, for an onset, went off one great cannon as it were of thunder alone, like a warning-piece to the rest that were to follow. Then, a little while after, was heard a second; until the number of 20 were discharged, or thereabout. In some little distance of time after this, was audibly heard the sound of a drum, beating a retreat. Amongst all these angry peals shot off from heaven, at the end of the report of every crack, a hissing noise made way through the air, not unlike the flying of bullets from the mouth of great ordnance, and by judgement were thunderbolts; for one of them was seen by many people to fall at a place called Bawlkin Green…” – anonymous leaflet on the Hatford meteorite fall of 1628
Thanks for the interesting link contribution.
Not meaning to go off topic, even a little bit, but reading about Phaëton there is a near perfect description of the February meteor:
A “declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the Earth” – hmmm, now if the term “declination” is taken to mean “declining” certainly that is so, and if “around the Earth” means in the vicinity of, as in near earth objects, Sonchis was no dummy.
This February one did not burn up all that was no the Earth, but the inability to drive them and the thunderbolt destruction – if this one hit 3 centuries ago or more, it would be a good description in non-technical terms. The meteor “came out of the sun” (one of the very first descriptions I read), and it careened across the sky, with billows VERY akin to dust behind a chariot, then died quickly after the thunderbolt hit it. All the elements are there.
Ok, back on topic, now! Sorry!
Steve Garcia
To: Steve on February 20, 2013 at 08:11
Can’t you see, that the pole is not straight? It is usual, that poles with electric cables attached, especially, when cable is only in on side, will get skewed.
Thank you Kuuuurija.
I must admit I did not pay much attention to the angle of the pole because the angle of the smoke trail was so far from vertical.
If the smoke trail passed through the zenith then when viewed in the WNW it should have been exactly vertical.
I should have explained that better.
This is the video from Yetkul, that I posted earlier, that seems to show the smoke trail pass overhead.
Looking both WNW and ESE the smoke trail appears vertical, which it must be to pass through the zenith.
About 26 seconds into the video, the camera looks WNW, showing a tall tower and the smoke trail.
To the right of the tall tower is a short tower.
The google earth image dated June 2009 clearly shows both towers and their shadows, allowing the accurate location of the base of the towers.
Tall Tower 54.82186ºN 61.57460ºE 232m
Short Tower 54.82229ºN 61.57870ºE 228m
Camera 54.82193ºN 61.58430ºE 230m
Using a precision geodesic program
Camera to Tall Tower Az 269.29ºT 624m
Camera to Short Tower Az 276.36ºT 362m
With these bearings I calculated the azimuth of the smoke trail from the video as 282.9º/102.9º.
It is hopefully accurate within a few degrees, assuming the smoke trail passed through the zenith at Yetkul and that the smoke trail did not move far cross track between when it was made and when it was videoed.
After I calculated the meteor azimuth I calculated
Yetkul to Lake Chebarkul ice hole azimuth 282.0º 81.8km. A nice agreement.
The sound delay recorded at Korkino (54.89070ºN,61.39898ºE) was 88 seconds.
The track from Yetkul passes about 5km a little west of south from Korkino.
Assuming the track at this point was nearly level, which it must have been for pieces to reach Lake Chebarkul, and using a 3 layer atmosphere model, I calculate the height of the sound source that reached Korkino was 26km.
If the height of the tall tower was known the elevation of the last part of the smoke trail could be estimated.
Steve –
You don’t need the tower projected up to the zenith. You have in this video everything that is needed to extrapolate the meteor’s heading. . .
. . .At 0:02 the view clearly shows the path of the object’s trail is very slightly to the left. The angle is not vertical, but slightly skewed. Ergo, this camera is NOT exactly under the trail.
…At 0:09 this is repeated, so I can safely say that the trail – as observed – is slightly to the south of the camera.
…At 0:25 the cameraman stops. He immediately points the camera at the building on the west side of the street. The trail is aligned with the center of the roof eave’s southern end. Almost.
Still standing in that spot, he swings the camera overhead, along the trail, and stops at 0:26 (you have to be quick with the ) when he has the eastern end in view. Also in view is the roof of the house on the east side. The trail aligns about a foot to the left of the southern edge.
. . .At 0:27 the east end of the trail aligns about 1 foot from the southern edge of the blue roof. The western end is about 1 meter east of the center of the southern edge of the roof of the long apt. building on the west side.
The blue roof is 14 meters wide.
The white roof is also 14 meters wide.
So now we have a camera in one spot, underneath the trail, and it has both ends of the trail. Bingo!
Now we just have to determine where he is. He is at 54°49’19.02″N 61°35’3.50″E, about 0.5 meter off the edge of the road. This can be determined by the views as he is walking.
Lining up those two points, we draw a line. The E-W heading is 279.46°. I’d give that a +/- of 0.5° with a 75% certainty it is within 0.25°.
Now, that heading worked back from Lake Chebarkul, using the end of the 2nd trajectory calcs above (the 1st doesn’t show an impact point), passes only 70 meters north of the cameraman.
But north isn’t south. Why do the 0:02 and 0:09 views look like the trail is to the south a little bit?
Issues:
1. Time – We don’t know how soon afterward the cameraman got out there.
2. Accuracy – I estimated the distances from the center of one roof and from the edge of the other. The two are less than 45 meters from each other, so extrapolating up to over 70 km will multiply any error by about 1500-fold.
3. Wind – was the wind blowing out of the north, pushing the trail southward? If not, then I don’t know how to rectify these observations. So I have to posit that the wind WAS blowing that way.
This heading is only 0.25° below the value of the first calcs above. So I am pretty confident of it.
Steve Garcia
p.s. IMHO the REAL problem is the transition from orbiting the Sun to that final heading at that location – latitude and longitude. I liken it to a really fast bug overtaking a bus from one side (the left one, I think) and then making a 90° right turn and going SPLAT! on the windshield halfway across and near the top of the glass. But this bug has no ability to maneuver on its own. Astronomers have done the easy parts – the flight as an Apollo and the final flight. But those two do not easily mesh, not at all.
Right now I am thinking it had to have circled Earth more than once before entering the atmosphere. I can’t see how it could have gotten into THAT heading at the end, not from that starting orbital path.
I updated my guesstimate: http://goo.gl/yd7Jk Added some orients, for explaining the azimuths. If you will find some errors (wrong location of a video, etc), or have idea of some good videos or photos that can improve my compilation, then let me know. Especially helpful would be videos and photos from behind the meteor, like from Troebratsky, Nikolaevka, Semipolka (KZ).
Like that map with the vid/pics located to get a feel of the whole thing.
Saw this one linked http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwkKvLf3fZE
On the right hand side of the trail from the POV of the cam – the trail looks like the rock is skipping! and quite consistently too with three loops there. The meteor did the triple jump :) Should probably call it meteors because from the trail looks like there were were two paths at least. Anyway good map and hope more gets added to it.
In another video shot from almost directly underneath, and with some close up shots, the main trail has what looks like a spiral or helix within it. Looks like the object was spinning very rapidly.
To Gary,
The video was taken some time after the meteor.
You can see the dense part of the cloud has risen a long way like a mushroom cloud.
The wiggles in the right hand side of the smoke trail are due to upper atmosphere winds distorting what was originally a straight line.
Nice map! Thanks for adding it.
BTW, does anybody knows was the exact position, course, altitude and speed ob the airplane, that was nearby at the moment of explosion? At least the Tower of Chelyabinsk Airport should know, as the plane was preparing to land there.
Take in a view, that end point of trajectory line should not be land at Chebarkul pool – it should be higher and continue farther. There are only not very big pieces stopped by air friction. It is interesting, how far it is continuing without air friction.
I am very interested whether you managed to get a precise information about the position of DMSP satellite, as well as about the correct way of projecting the satellite image onto the map.
Also, do you possess a decent-quality version of that image? I only found these two images: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-colorado-state-university-scientists-visible.html and http://www.today.colostate.edu/story.aspx?id=8234 , both of which have relatively low resolution.
Thanks to g1smd’s connection we might get some help on that. But perhaps it is good also to try directly through the colorado scientists. Sadly, I won’t have time the next 8hours.
Hi penguinny, I’ve already asked the scientists from Colorado university. We might get some information.
I have found the position (55.170043°, 61.316855°) of the great photoes of Marat Ahmetvaleev of Chebarkul meteor at
http://marateaman.livejournal.com/27910.html
They are very good for reconstruction of explosives and heights of the trail
Wow, that one photo with the full fresh contrail should go on to win all kinds of international photo prizes. Stunning.
This seems to be one of the better videos to capture the multiple bangs from the event. http://www.youtu.be/gQ6Pa5Pv_io The sound is a bit dampened by being inside a vehicle, however you can see the sound visibly shakes the vehicle a few times. Shame about the car alarm sounding over the first part.
This one too for sounds: https://www.youtu.be.com/efvP-RRuJuA
There are deep shadows in the car park but doesn’t look like anything that can be measured for distance.
theres gif off http://www.youtu.be/gQ6Pa5Pv_io to show the end trail at http://postimage.org/image/zdzm79g95/
Thank you Serge.
Great job! kmz file with meteorite path are very nice!
For ssvilponis
Troitsk car camera
54.07707ºN
61.53128ºE
bearing of Vanishing point
329.0º
using full resolution and full screen
Interesting CCTV video with some fragments falling down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZzwB7FeJRgA
The poster politely refused to provide the location, so I guess it’s a high security object like military base, depot or something nuclear related. So I found a military base and a security wall resembling what is on the video at 54.99633, 60.74004 but some features on the video do not match, so I don’t think the camera is there. Can you, the shadow specialists, calculate approximate location of the camera and the bearing of the wall?
Hi Serge, if the updated kmz from Stefan is accurate, and considering the almost abscence of shadow at the pole’s foot, I’d say the barrier’s orientations in the village of Sart-Abdrashevo match pretty well the video. It’s at 54.778019,62.247326
Serge –
First off, NICE video! It could be used to find meteorites.
I got it the location of the camera for you.
The fence alignment matches, and the tanks on the right match. The pipeline you see in the distance diving under the fence, with another pipeline beyond. I even can see the pole the camera is mounted on. It is at 54°50’56.53″N 61°33’15.14″E.
It is a facility just NW of the town of Yetkul/Etkul/Etcul.
Based on the angle of the flight, it had to be very near – but slightly to the right – of the flight. The object passed overhead just to the left, but finished to the right. So, the fence had to have an alignment essentially E-W. I tracked back along the right edge of the first trajectory calcs (above) on GE.
It was farther back than I’d thought. But by backing out and getting a low perspective that was close to that in this video, I was able to get it pretty quickly.
Steve Garcia
Central Mexico
Nice sleuthing! That definitely is the location, and most calculated paths I’ve seen pass exactly overhead of this location.
No exact location, but this video http://tati.kiev.ua/video/14028/ was shot from a small village around 54.8192, 61.7072 give or take 500 meters.
This car-video was taken from Otradnoye near Samara:
http://youtu.be/Bq9bdyFbfh8
i.e. as far as ~700 km to the W from Chelyabinsk! Approximate place is here:
http://goo.gl/maps/dBGNb
but I don’t know the exact location yet.
I’ve found some problems with this video taken from Otradny (not “Otradnoye”) near Samara. Notice that fireball is well above the horizon. Earth approx. diameter is 12740 km, distance from Korkino to Otradny is near 680 km. Simple calculation (or plotting) demonstrates that you can observe objects at altitudes no less than about 35 km at such distances! I suggested that this mismatch may be due to some atmosphere optical effects (that also can not be excluded and may be important for large-distance obsrvations).
Thanks, Steve! This video was very helpful!
To: Serge on February 21, 2013 at 09:29
Those are not fragments but reflection fro the window.
For Sean Mac
You said that on a Chelyabinsk traffic camera a car alarm started 160 seconds after the meteor.
If this is the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWYGbOQubIk
I see it start at about 142 seconds.
And a person standing near the car seems to react to something.
Can you tell me the camera location please.
The location is written in the bottom left corner. It’s a public webcam at 55.143883, 61.41443. You can also watch the camera on Google’s maps webcams layer.
Thank you Serge
Yet another idea, may be interesting: if operator started recording after the meteor passed the sky (the most common situation), it may be possible to estimate time (more or less precise) by comparing some small details of the contrail using videos with fireball taken from the similar perspective. A good 4D model (3D+time) of developing contrail is desirable for such purposes (but not strongly required at first steps). A huge work, BTW…
It’s even possible to find images for stereo-pairs to see 3D features of the contrail…
Steve, it’s already on ssvilponis map, although the corner of the building seems to be misplaced. The orignal: http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=plpp&v=gQ6Pa5Pv_io
To: Steve on February 21, 2013 at 14:38
https://maps.google.com/?ll=55.141449,61.414669&spn=0.004979,0.016512&t=h&z=17
The other one is Lesoparkovaya street, Chelyabinsk. See http://goo.gl/yd7Jk and look for Lesoparkovskaya.
Meteorite ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tF5f1kLpQ4
An interesting photo taken from airplane (Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone):
http://i54.fastpic.ru/big/2013/0215/66/1d6cc8d2b2e95609ad9e4ca3ad9ff066.jpg
I think it is original and EXIF data is correct…
Good visibilty , clearly visible of the angle .
another interesting photo
http://s18.postimage.org/a9wyibt3t/7_Mvu4yml_Bg4.jpg
It is here:
55.149944 61.363964
Original(?):
http://youtu.be/gQ6Pa5Pv_io
Serge, can you be more specific about your claim, that the corner of the building seems to be misplaced?
The frontal building from the video is under construction on Google satellite map. Only the basement is visible. And the corner stays left if you look at the camera towards the landing site of the meteor.
Posting on Serge’s behalf:
=======
Yandex maps has fresher satellite images in this region and they also crowd-source vector maps. Here is the map http://maps.yandex.ru/-/CVRP4B0b and here is the image http://maps.yandex.ru/-/CVRP4B96. I believe the white building on the video is 18k2. What you think is a building under construction is probably a demolished building. Here is also a map with height perspective http://kvels74.ru/uploads/company/70854787/map.png
=======
Started another map, nased on sound delay:
http://goo.gl/pNxPh
ssvilponis your new sound delay map is very nice.
See the coordinates at meteorites.ru
Meanwhile, I managed to get better versions of DMSP photograph from another source, see here: https://twitter.com/sgtgary/status/302333403301285888
It will be quite trivial to georeference it properly and align it with the local map; I’m a little bit busy at the moment, but will probably do it over the weekend. Please let me know if you manage to get any additional images or data related to DMSP.
Asteroid seen from Южноуральск ( Yuzhnouralsk )
54.44N 61.26E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTc2_FKOOWo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KYdARfYidM
луки для – regards for astronomy.ru
;)
Hi!
Here my 3D reconstruction of meteor traektory using only Video
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B63fwwDG1ubLMmY5YmFhWTYxYXc/edit
you can save it or open with Google Earth
For ssvilponis
On your very nice path map
http://goo.gl/yd7Jk
You show a meteorite find reported near Kuvashi which is about 60km down range from Lake Chebarkul.
I see no evidence in the videos for this.
A dark filght of about 75km does not compute.
I would be very interested to find out if it is a real meteorite, and similar to the Lake Chebarkul meteorites.
And if so, if it was transported by someone to Kuvashi.
To: Steve on February 22, 2013 at 04:36
Some pieces of the cosmic body fell down earlier, mostly starting with the “explosion” – fast disintegration of the meteor. Those pieces were too small to leave a visible contrail and fall down earlied because of sudden loss of velocity in violent disintegration process.
Great site, some excellent analysis. But I see a few big problems with some of the analysis, mostly related to descent angle, and attributing too much significance to the plane defined by the meteor path and an arbitrary observer’s location. #1: With such a linear path, 1000 different observer locations give 1000 different planes, 1000 different plane intersections with Earth’s surface, etc. #2: So, except for observers seeing it pass through their zenith, the plane intersection with Earth is not the ground track. #3: Drawing any/all of the proposed paths to the ground at Chebarkul Lake is definitely an error, as it gives each of thee proposed paths a different heading for its ground track, all radiating out from the lake. #4: Having solved the ground track heading as being 282.5 degrees (good work!), just draw various proposed paths on your plane, all having ground track heading 282.5 with the ground track passing over the lake at various altitudes. #5: In general, when measuring every photo or video with a protractor to see descent angle, remember that the measured angle is simply an upper limit on how steep it might be. Even the trail of an airplane in level flight can be made to appear perpendicular to the horizon (by an observer whose zenith it passed through), but a vertical pole can never be made to appear parallel to the horizon. Every photo makes the path look steeper than it is, except for an observer perfectly positioned to show the true angle (by sheer coincidence, in a case like this where they didn’t “know” where to be for a protractor-ready view). #6: There is some info about a fall area 80km farther along the path than the lake. I have seen it variously described as Zlatoust area or village of Kuvashi. Without knowing the impact velocity there, it is impossible to say where a straight-line impact would have been, which the path must be aimed at.
Re #2, I don’t think anyone assumed that. The reason the contrail on the meteosat 9 image fits the ground track of the plane as seen from central Chelyabinsk in the video is because the satellite, completely by accident, also found itself aligned with that plane.
My last comment was not suggesting that we can calculate where near Kuvashi it must be. I was suggesting that Kuvashi is too near to be the “linear aim point”, as would be any other found meteorite from this event.
For ssvilponis
in this video
you can see the formation of the explosion trail at 09:20:31
If you carefully watch the right end of the explosion trail, in the next 4 seconds it moves to the right.
So videos taken of the explosion trail cloud more than 4 seconds after it was formed will show it displaced down range.
Re my earlier message about a meteorite reported near Kuvashi.
When people see a meteor go below their horizon or behind objects near the horizon they frequently think a meteorite landed nearby not realising how far away the meteor really was.
To: Steve on February 22, 2013 at 05:25
Forming of the contrail is complex process and during the fall there are some differences there, as atmosphere is layered (different density, temperature, moisture content etc), the disintegration speed varies and energy involved decreases. For finding azimuths I used contrail ends after they were (almost) completely formed. Some times it was little tricky as video was filmed from a moving car.
For ssvilponis
I think the most important thing now is to estimate the height of the vanishing point above ground.
Was it 25km, 20km, or 15km, this affects how far the landing zone might extend beyond Lake Chebarkul.
It will also give a more accurate radiant for the meteor.
In my option the landing zone does not extend very far beyond Lake Chebarkul, if at all.
We know the explosion trail height and location, so for each video its elevation can be calculated.
To allow for the curvature of the earth subtract
H = D²/12.75
from the height
where H is in metres, and D is in km
This should only be a small correction.
This can then be used to estimate the elevation of the vanshing point on the video, we already know the distance so the height can be calculated.
You will need to add the above correction for the vanshing point height.
Steve on February 22, 2013 at 06:44 said:
I think it should be relatively easy to find the height if to use two near but opposite views (with some decent orients) to the vanishing point. But this is not my priority now. Instead I try to find more information for my sound delay map. It should give some idea about altitudes. At first I assume that the speed of the sound is constant, 300 m/s. Afterwards, as I know the approximate height, I can use more complex modelling.
You can try my excel worksheet:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwwWPUHhxn2ESERRYXRsTUlWdk0/edit?usp=sharing
Calculations based on the 3-layer atmosphere model (temperature falls from the ground-T to -56.6°C at 11 km, then T=const up to 25 km, then rises again). It is very simple but widely used approximation if actual T-Alt is not available. I’m also interested in such calculations, I think it’s possible to detect hypersonic shock waves by such way if their speed was high for some distances…
I found also another model with more layers, but I did’n use it yet.
BTW, I have found several papers about meteoritic acoustic waves, 2 of them may be interesting to read:
J.B.Tatum, L.C.Parker, L.L.Stumpf (2000) Sound from a fi reball – distinguishing between the hypersonic shock front and the terminal burst. Planetary and Space Science, v.48, p. 921-923
J.B. Tatum (1999) Fireballs: Interpretation of airblast data. Mefeorrfrcs & Planefury Science, v.34, p. 511-585
The latter contains chapter about supersonic shock fronts, too (and provides some estimations…)
Greate job!
I’ve made an estimation based on the luminous part trajectory taken from outskirts Chelyabinsk, Kamensk-Uralsky and Magnitogorsk. The flight path is parallel to your updated estimation. Your initial trajectory contradicts Magnitogorsk footage. (road is parallel to estimated trajectory while on the record it is not).
Soon I’ll be able to publish calculations for comparisson.
Best regards,
Vladimir.
Congratulations, amazing job!
You are even more crazy than me: I only THOUGHT about doing this job…. but I eventually didn’t even try it due to complexity of calculations…
Anyway, I have some more data for you to play with:
a shot taken just from above the scene from a military satellite:
An image to be verified against GoogleEarth to figure out if it’s fake or real. I’m trying doing this, but maybe you’ll be faster than me.
Found a similar russian study:
http://74.ru/forum/theme.php?id=627655#msg11161818
And a billion of videoclips…
https://web.duke.edu/isis/gessler/meteorites/chelyabinsk.htm
https://web.duke.edu/isis/gessler/meteorites/chelyabinsk.htm
And another mapping attempt:
https://maps.google.ee/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=216221265233140305376.0004d5da6860954d651ba
For those of you still following along, I’ve just added an update to the original post:
====
UPDATE 2013-02-22: OK, so this is kind of special: An astrophysics paper has just been submitted to ArXiv.org that models the orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteor, referencing this blog post as a starting point: A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid by Jorge I. Zuluagaa and Ignacio Ferrin. Details are here, and here comes the resulting animation:
====
Check the post for the Youtube video they made.
Congratulations Stefan The astrophysics paper makes the
same simple assumption as you, that an extension of the descending
straight line path of the meteor intersects the earth at Lake
Chebarkul. It does not, it passes high above Lake Chebarkul. This
occurs because as the speed reduces gravity has more time to
deflect the path into a much steeper angle. The simple assumption
results in an arrival angle that it to steep.
Some physics to take into account for a more accurate
model: – an object in horizontal movement at constant speed over a
flat surface starts falling along a parabolic path as soon as the
flat surface “ends”: horizontal speed remains constant (neglecting
air friction), but vertical speed starts accelerating like “9,81 *
time”. Same happens if initial movement is not horizontal but
obliquous, but modelling it is quite more complex. – taking into
account air friction, horizontal speed is not constant also; air
friction affects speed by mean of friction force: F = 0,5 * ro *
CdA * speed^2 ro = air density CdA = Total drag coefficient, made
of Cd*A, where Cd=”empirical drag coefficient” and A = frontal area
(=section). This makes all very complex as you can’t exactly know
bot Cx and A, and ro varies with altitude! It’s quite a mess! :-)
Only thing you can say by sure is that if meteorite entered
atmosphere in point A with direction (D), the line crossing A
toward (D) CANNOT pass through the impact point L (lake), which
MUST be closer to A due to air friction. Hence, if actually
meteorite was found in the lake, the initial trajectory angle w.r.t
horizontal line must be SMALLER than the angle between AL line and
the horizon. Drawing: http://penolo.com/rrUX
For ssvilponis On your map you have the Kartaly video
placed next to Yuzhnouralsk. The Shelomentsevo video does not load
for me with my viewer.
Sorry, but I can’t understand what videos you are talking about?
More images from space:
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/12356
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2013/02/16/the-chelyabinsk-meteor-seen-from-space/
Here is a meteoric event similar to the Chelyabinsk event.
1919 Nov 27 ~02h UT Michigan/Indiana USA ~42ºN ~86ºW The Washington
Times (D.C.) 1919 Nov 27 page 1b.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1919-11-27/ed-1/seq-1/
“EARTH QUIVERS AS SKY PHENOMENON DESCENDS Electric Plants Wrecked
As Strange Visitor Appears on Michigan-Indiana Line. CHICAGO, Nov.
27. – Telegraph and telephone communications and electric lighting
plants in several cities in southern Michigan and northern Indiana
are out of commission today as a result of a remarkable phenomenon,
believed by several scientists to have been a gigantic meteor which
rushing earthward from the East appeared to dissolve as it
approached the earth near Athens, Mich., last night. The phenomenon
is reported to have assumed various forms, in its race earthward,
ranging from a brilliant illumination to a heavy rain accompanied
by heavy thunder. The phenomenon was seen over Chicago by several
persons. It was reported here shortly before 8 o’clock. It appeared
over the lake and resembled in appearance an extraordinarily
prolonged flash of heat lightning. Athens, Battle Creek, and Three
Oaks, Mich., report considerable damages to property. At Athens, it
is said, there was an earthquake, continuing for fully three
minutes, accompanied by a heavy rain and wind storm, a loud clap of
thunder, and a flash of light in the sky of longer duration than
lightning. At La Porte, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Warsaw, and other
Indiana points, windows were broken by the concussion. The Calumet
Electric Light Company, at Kalamazoo, Mich., and several smaller
plants throughout this section of the country were temporarily
disabled.” Area of reported building damage and smashed windows:-
Athens Michigan 42.09ºN 85.23ºW Battle Creek Michigan 42.31ºN
85.20ºW Three Oaks Michigan 41.80ºN 86.62ºW La Porte Indiana
41.61ºN 86.72ºW South Bend Indiana 41.67ºN 86.26ºW Fort Wayne
Indiana 41.08ºN 85.14ºW Warsaw Indiana 41.24ºN 85.85ºW The main
difference is that the impacted area of Michigan/Indiana had a
small number of people and buildings compared to the Chelyabinsk
area. This event made front page news and was investigated at the
time by astronomers, but has been completely forgotten. You will
not find it on any list. How many more events like these have been
recorded and forgotten.
For ssvilponis No meteorite at Kuvashi. Update. February
16, 2013 “searches were conducted at the village Zvyagino and
Kuvashi. According to the assessment by the Commission of the
Government of the Chelyabinsk region, finds of the celestial body
remains failed.”
http://meteorites.ru/menu/press-e/yuzhnouralsky2013-e.php
Approximate place of falling Chelyabinsk’s meteorite near the
Kuvashi village. Coordinates: 55°8’43″N 59°26’54″E “This place was
deleted, it will be removed from all search engines in few weeks.”
http://wikimapia.org/26842025/deleted
To: Steve on February 23, 2013 at 07:44
Thank you for inmormation! Removed the landmark.
For ssvilponis sound map:
http://krasview.ru/video/342138-METEORIT_15_02_2013g_Chelyabinsk_Chel.obl._g.Emanjelinsk.
The only video I could find south of the trajectory. It started at
54.75587, 61.30517 and unfortunately it was cut in the middle while
the car was moving. I think at the end the car was parked facing NW
at one of the building not that far away, for example at 54.759006,
61.30369 or 54.762482, 61.309376. Even though the exact location is
not known as far as I see it does not confirm to the current
trajectory on your sound map. Did I miscalculate
something?
Max. flash is at ~09:06:22, thunder is at 09:07:53, delay
is 91 sec (observ. angle may be near 80°), and 88 s on well-known
video from the market-place in Korkino (angle was near 68°). I
don’t see dramatic differences (taking into account that some
assumptions may be wrong or too simplified, e.g. regarding first
thunder source points and cyllindrical shape of wave front). More
thorough analysis is required to fine-tune distances and altitudes,
I think.
Intersection of wave front with the ground surface should
be elliptical if trajectory is not parallel to the
ground…
Misprint is in my previous post: angles should be 80° for
the Korkino video and 68° for Yemanzhelinsk…
I was confused by the lines on ssvilponis’ sound map
http://goo.gl/pNxPh After I found Pervomaysky video, I see the
Yemanzelinks dashcam video is fine. The explosion was above
Pervomaysky. BTW I assumed the flash on the video is at 6:23,
windows destroyed at 7:22.5, delay is 89.5. Also while you say the
Korkino delay is 88 while ssvilponis maps says 89. Hopefully
whoever does the final calculations will rectify the
discrepancies.
Serge, you can use this video from Troitsk, too:
http://youtu.be/6TYV4EQvz2w Observation angle is measurable by
object/shadow proportion, delay is about 5 minutes(!), detected by
the first cam vibrations. Coordinates: 54°2’26.72″N,
61°38’59.18″E.
To: Serge on February 23, 2013 at 08:12
Thanks! Found the exact place and included it onto map.
Do not pay too much attention for distance and altitude calculations as I am still looking for more source data and preliminary calculations are very much simplified.
I just pinpointed the location of a video from Pervomaysky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R99zvcrqXo8 – 54.872644, 61.200792.
Watch the video, it looks like they are located right below the
mushroom formation. If a panorama picture can be created from the
video, it will be easier to see. Also if you measure the distance
from the Korkino dashcam and the Yemananzelinsk dashcam I just
posted they are almost at the same distance from that point, so it
looks like that’s the location of the explosion.
Don’t forget the upper atmosphere winds. The small
meteorites that landed at Deputatskoye seem to have been blown
south by a wind during their long fall. A south wind would mean
that sound would arrive in less time at Yemanzhelinsk than if there
was no wind. Can anyone find data on the upper atmosphere winds
around the time of the meteor.
Hi Stephan, This is so great to see. It’s riveting looking
at your work and the collaboration from commentors. I have a small
contribution to make below but can I first ask a question in
relation to it: Have you got an Azimuth for the trajectory? Or
maybe just the angle from true North of the ground track? I tried
to use google Earth to click on the end points and work out the
angle but I’m on an iPhone app- it won’t work. I can judge it as
maybe 105 degrees but it would be nice to get it exact. My
contribution is this: Firstly, I think the reason the the satellite
image trajectory looks very convincing is because of parallax. From
geostationary orbit, the Earth’s surface is slanted away at 55 deg
at that point. Then you have to add another 7 deg for the
translational displacement of the satellite about 5000km down in
the equatorial plane. That’s 62 degrees. This means what we are
really seeing is the plume projected onto to the surface in the
wrong place. This effect gets worse the higher up the plume you go
so at the 30km high point of the explosion it is projecting that
56km north of the true ground track point (the complement angle of
62 deg is 28 deg so the horizontal northward projection is the
reciprocal of tan 28deg x 30km). The good thing is that if that’s
the case it fits perfectly with your ground track at least when you
eyeball it and assuming the inclination angle is correct which it
seems to be. The second thing is that I don’t think Phil Plait’s
vid is Meteosat 9. The other horizon photo is because its the right
angle. Meteosat 9 is over the Greenwich meridian hence the eastward
angle foreshortening. I think the video must be another
geostationary satellite. Its much less foreshortened, if at all.
There’s one over India. It doesn’t affect my point above- in fact
the more square on in terms of longitude the geostationary
satellite is, the better the latitudinal parallax can be resolved.
Thanks, I hope that helps and if you or a commenter can help me
with the azimuth/ bearing from north question about the tranectory,
I’d be really grateful.
There is a little viewed (603 views) video from directly (I
guess within 1km or so) underneath the meteor’s trail, about in the
middle of the most explosive part of its travel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R99zvcrqXo8 I got these coordinates
via an email update for this page written by Serge (who mentioned
Pervomaysky), but the text of that update does not appear on this
page itself. This video was clearly taken at the coordinates Serge
supplied: 54.872644 N, 61.200792 E, with three smokestacks behind a
building:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=54.872644+N,+61.200792+E&hl=en&ll=54.872687,61.202066&spn=0.004574,0.008497&sll=51.533333,55.008889&sspn=0.660343,0.582275&t=h&z=17
This is the Korkino Cement Plant:
http://www.lafarge.ru/wps/portal/ru/en/2_1_A_2-UralCementPlant next
to the Klubnika railway station which is about 1.5km ENE of
Pervomayskiy (note the ‘i’) AKA Pervomaiskii. This about 8km WSW of
Korkino. I think this video locates the meteor’s path with a
north-to-south accuracy better than any other evidence I recall
seeing. Also, it may be possible to locate the features of the
smoke trail in the east-west direction from this video. Serge made
several contributions to this page, including the coordinates of
the Korkino marketplace video, but all that appears is his first
name.
Hi Stefan, Here is a video:
http://krasview.ru/video/342138-METEORIT_15_02_2013g_Chelyabinsk_Chel.obl._g.Emanjelinsk.
with the final part of entry clearly visible, and then with
multiple windows in a 5 storey building being blown in. This is
taken with the same dashboard camera. The 90 time delay can be
measured accurately from the meteor being at maximum brightness
roughly overhead. This was a little south of the path. The
translation of the title and Google maps enabled me to find the
exact location. Just at or after the peak brightness, the car
travels NW under a pipeline, which is visible with its shadow,
directly SW of the L shaped building at 54.75639 N, 61.304564 E.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=%D0%95%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=54.75639,61.304564&spn=0.002393,0.004249&sll=-37.73563,145.07369&sspn=0.05247,0.036392&t=h&hnear=Yemanzhelinsk,+Yemanzhelinsky+District,+Chelyabinsk+Oblast,+Russia&z=18
The overhead brightest part is around 6:23. The shockwave arrives
at 7:53. Someone with better knowledge of sound propagation, given
the very high intensity of the shockwave near the meteor, could
probably come up with a good estimate of distance within 1 km.
There is information on the speed of sound here:
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/SpeedOfSoundPressure.pdf but the
pressure of this wave is extremely positive, so it may travel
faster than the usual measures of low intensity sound, such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound A guess is 310m/sec *
90 = 27.9km, with the meteor path being very close to vertical
above this location, tilting somewhat downwards to the west. If we
could find other similar time-delay videos along the path it may be
possible to reasonably accurately deduce the angle of the path,
even without making exact assumptions about the velocity of sound.
As you pointed out, so far the best estimate of the path and what
kind of asteroid orbit it may have come from is the work by Jorge
I. Zuluaga & Ignacio Ferrin: http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.5377
– based on your work on this page.
http://www.youtu.be/Rsyc_vQoh0M — Is that “dust” at the end of the trail?
More than 225 videos in the playlist now…
For ssvilponis
The Deputatskoye and Bereznyaki meteorites look real to me (amateur astronomer).
It is very reasonable they are small pieces from the explosion south of Korkino blown south of the meteor path by winds.
I think your landing zone should include them.
Also, clearly from the videos, pieces landed all along the path before the vanishing point.
I don’t know if there were meteorites found at Pustozerova, it is quite possible.
I think the landing zone should extend from a little past Korkino to a little past Lake Chebarkul.
Steve, it is possible, that small pieces reached the ground
all the way since meteor descended into higher density atmosphere
layers. I extended the area towards Zlatoust when there was a rumor
about meteorite found near Zlatoust. I provided the area as my
rough prediction only. Now I can’t see any other reason to still
keep this area on the map, than one Norwegian newspaper published
this map on their online edition and they referenced the magenta
area in the text beneath the map. Known meteorite sites are now
more precise information for searching teams, than my
prediction.
I have found approximate position of photo from the plane
http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/4138/93431414.5b/0_a3d16_e6f01d1b_orig
Coordinates:
55.571143677,63.130811893, Altitude 11000, View Azimuth 223.52
The another photo from plane without signs from
http://forums.airbase.ru/2013/02/t87595,16–padenie-meteorita-15-fevralya-2013-goda-na-urale.html#p3067641
were made at approximately at
55.46314430, 62.614714374, Alt 10000, View Azimuth 228
Thanks, Venus Explorer! I think the plane is not able to travel so fast, but thanks to you I recognised the terrain. The Bombardier CRJ-200 should travel at 700…800 km/h so during the gap between those two pictures (23s) it could travel only 4500…5000m.
I think that is not The Bombardier CRJ-200. I think this is
another plane to fly to another city by the way near Chelyabinsk.
Unfortunately I do not have any additional information about these
photoes.
I agree! It might be, that those photos came from another
airplane. Time and position of these photos has discrepancy with
some details of the copilot report. I included the plane to the map
to remind me to do some research about air traffic. I think it
might give some information about the slope of the meteors
trajectory.
I am not wery familiar with the Google maps. How can I import an image overlay there?
I did an overlay in Google Eart and want to use it now with my Google Maps sound delay map. Can somebody help me, please?
The overlay is there: http://www.arbuarkel.com/~sulev/Chelyabinsk/EmergencyCallsOverlay.kmz
you should just paste your link into googlemaps
searchbox… but it does not appear to work…
“The mass of the largest fragment, which landed in the lake
Chebarkul, was estimated to be 200-500 kg.”
http://www.webalice.it/mizar02/articoli/Meteorb.dat
If these programs were available to the public…
http://www.imo.net/imc2011/presentations/Przemyslaw%20Zoladek%20-%20PyFN%20-%20Meteor%20Analysis%20Software.pdf
http://www.imo.net/imc2011/presentations/Pete%20Gural%20%28D.Segon%29%20-%20New%20trajectory%20estimation%20software.pdf
For ssvilponis: Very good location for triangulation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpKBXsowQfE It’s hard to see so feel
free to double check the exact location. I believe the video starts
at 55.00715, 61.19830, the car passes the beginning of the divider
at 0:21 located at 55.007828, 61.20818, parks 55.008247, 61.21551
and the explosion sound reaches the car at 55.00829,
61.21638.
For ssvilponis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrYQ27unqJ0
Flash and explosion wave on a CCTV camera at 55.104093, 61.38877
(Troitskiy tract, 56, warehouse #6)
Thank you, Serge! Added both landmarks to the map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_u-MNyBnDk#!
The moment of the worst building destruction (Zinc Works) caught on a dashcam video, a second earlier than the sound reached the car. That should silence any speculation that it was hit by a piece of meteorite.
There is also the flash on the same camera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWoe4Tqeu3o but I think we have enough sound delay videos from Checlyabinks. I’m not sure we need more of them from the same direction.
I think the zinc plant zone should still be included as
there were major damages to the buildings. Unfortunately I cant
read the time stamp of the video (video is stabilised afterwards?)
and because the video is cut into separate scenes, I cant rely on
player time either.
On some video near Zinc Works, could see the road sign
“methane”. My hypothesis the wall destruction could connect with
artificial detonation by sonic wave. But this is only
hypothesis.
I’ve added some features to Stefan’s KMZ file that include the cement factory data and a satellite photo I found at the Baltimore Sun. The KMZ file is available at http://greenes.com/index.html .
Я добавил некоторые возможности для KMZ файл Стефана, которые включают цементный завод данными и спутниковые фотографии я нашел в Baltimore Sun.KMZ файл находится по адресу http://greenes.com/index.html.
On your path map
http://goo.gl/yd7Jk
Just after you added the “Railway pole, Kartaly” symbol and the angles from Kartaly to the meteor, I noticed there was no “Spot of taking a video” symbol for the Kartaly video location.
video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl_kD8WtQyY#
I still do not see it.
I then went and clicked on the “Spot of taking a video” symbol at Yuzhnouralsk. To my surprise it said Kartaly.
It now says Yuzhnouralsk.
Symbol “Nadir, Shelomentsevo”
http://tati.kiev.ua/video/14028/
When I try to look at this video, my Adobe Flash Player 11 says “Movie not loaded”.
I have not seen MeTube before, does it require a different viewer?
Minor data entry errors on your sound delay map
http://goo.gl/pNxPh
Korkino
D=300*89=2697m by sight [2697 => 26700]
89s 26700m by sight 48700m by ground A=26252m [48700 => 4870]
Lesoparkovaya
D=300*140=4200m by sight [4200 => 42000]
Steve, I think you just saw a moment of editing. Sometimes
I had to displace a object to get access to another map element for
correction. For Shelomentsevo video I do not use any special
player. It just plays in browser like the other videos. I think
that the problem is not related to the MeTube, but the camera
codec. Thanks for pointing to errors!
The most western video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ7SL9PDsu4 Note the largest piece still didn’t hit the earth 80km after passing Cherbakul lake! The uploader provided the location, village Teploe near Satka city. The village is pretty small with the center at 55.04972, 58.93938, but I think the video was shot from one of the corner houses at 55.05159, 58.94324.
That darker streak is not the trajectory of a meteor piece but the shadow of the contrail.
I don’t think so, from another angle you clearly see the
sun was still BELOW the contrail, being it early morning (09:20
local)
It is definitely a shadow! Because the Sun is low, the
shadow is casted upwards.
Then I don’t understand why shadow arrives down to Earth
surface.
Haw do you know the location? I don’t see both in
description and comments, and Teploe is near Moscow!
From Serge:
To jumpjack: I guess you have to be a native Russian speaker, Google
translate does not work. You have to know abbreviations used in
addresses. This is the comment by the uploader: “Челябинская область,
г.Сатка, в трех километрах от центра города (пос. Теплый)”.
Translation: “Chelyabinks region, Satka city, 3km from the center of
the city (settlement Teply)”. I accidentally changed the ending of
Teply in my previous post because I translated пос. (поселок) as
village. Now I think settlement is a better translation. Another
problem is that some Russian letters can be transliterated in
different ways and that may prevent search from working. Teply can be
written as Teplyi, Tepliy, Teplyy or Teplyiy.
After getting the location name I used wikimapia.org to find it
visually near Satka city. I have also confirmed the location by going
to maps.yandex.ru and right clicked on it to use “Что здесь?” (“What’s
here?”) feature.
In general in Russia wikimapia.org and n.maps.yandex.ru (note the n.
in the beginning, it’s crowdsourced maps supported by yandex) have the
most features mapped. maps.yandex.ru is the best verified map.
maps.google.com has the highest resolution satellite images.
maps.yandex.ru has the most recent satellite images.
———————
Here is a video from a surveillance cam on the School #18 in Miass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPaBJQ-0Hkg
Coordinates are 55.136221 N, 60.154820 E.
I think the most useful thing on this video is motion of a
basketball backboard shade.
Sorry, but the video does not show the shock wave. It would
be interesting, what was the delay in Miass. If it reached there at
all.
I am fairly sure that video was previously a lot longer,
and showed movement several minutes after the flash.
I asked about shock wave and time lapse on YouTube in
comments. But I thought this video should be used for
triangulation.
Here’s some info on the position of the sun at 03:20 UTC
(GMT) on 15th Feb 2013 at the locations of Korkino and Cherbarkyl.
I’m including it because the suns position is uncannily
coincidential with the meteor trail and quite useful for
calculations. Korkino coordinates are from the Wiki entry but to
two decimal places (about 1 mile). Cherbarkyl coords are from this
blog thread. There’s not much difference between the sun position
of course but I included both for accuracy. Korkino: 54.89N 61.38E
(decimal lat and long to 2 dec places) Altitude: (minus) -0.42
degrees (+0.26 deg with refraction) Azimuth: 111.74 degrees
Cherbarkyl: 54 deg 59N 60 deg 22″ E (not decimal) Alt: (minus)
-0.98 deg (-0.16 with refraction) Azimuth: 110.92 degrees Altitude
is height above horizon. Azimuth is angle from north through East
so these azimuths show the sun is about 11-12 deg south of east. We
know from Stefan’s map that the meteor path is around 110 deg
azimuth. This means that the rising sun was almost directly below
the meteor radiant (or the plume as you looked back along it).
However, because the video above (with the plume almost head on
with the suns ray-shadow) shows the sun as south of the plume (ie
to the right of being centred below), it means the plume line can
be constrained to less than 111.74 degrees of Azimuth for sure (the
point below the explosion plume). Also the fact that sun was on the
horizon was probably the reason for such a great ray shadow. And
incidentally, it wasn’t on the horizon for the plume 30km up. At
Cherbarkl, the -0.16 azimuth (for centre of suns disc) means that
the top tip of the suns disc was at the horizon (in theory, 2% of
the disc above! according to figures above- but a change of a few
miles or minutes would change that). Where the video was taken it
must’ve been just breaking the horizon but for the plume it was
fully risen. A word of caution: that ray shadow looks like its at a
big angle to the plume but it can’t be. It’s foreshortened by 80km
or so therefore it fans right out like suns rays through clouds
over the sea. But I suppose it could be calculated using the
coordinates we have, eyeballing the angle in the video and flipping
it over geometrically so we are looking down flat from above. I
guess it must be at least 2 or 3 degrees which would corroborate
the 110 or thereabouts line you have already. But it might just
push it back to a tad less than 110 perhaps? If you could find
another ray shadow plume video it might be usefu too. Coordinates
above for the sun were used by converting the sun’s equatorial
coordinate position from the JPL Horizons ephemeris tool at 03.20
GMT on the day. Therefore it was a conversion from celestial
coordinates to local horizontal coordinates. Hope that’s of help to
someone. Scute
Better look at this video
Our parameters of the trajectory are (Spurny et al.):
Relative Longitude Latitude Height Velocity Notes Time (s) (deg E)
(deg N) (km) (km/s) 0.00 64.266 54.508 91.83 17.5 beginning of
registration 9.18 61.913 54.788 41.02 17.5 minor flare 11.20 61.455
54.836 31.73 17.5 major flare 12.36 61.159 54.867 25.81 17.5 flare
13.20 60.920 54.891 21.05 12.5 minor flare 16.20 60.606 54.922
14.94 4.3 end of registration Pavel Kalenda
http://www.youtube.com/user/firstyurka
Correction! In my last comment I meant Stefan’s
reconstruction was around 100deg azimuth, not 110. But the video
can still be used as I suggested to corroborate the findings along
with the sun’s azimuth. It’s like the last word, to prove you are
right. Sometimes people look at the hard-won research evidence and
don’t ‘see’ it and have their doubts. The sun’s angle says it all,
just to convince them.
Excellent work from all of you! I posted this work at my
blog “Blog del Espacio” with spanish translation
http://blogdelespacio.tumblr.com/post/43905141526/la-reconstruccion-de-la-trayectoria-del-meteoro
JPL’s HORIZONS system uses a “standard atmosphere
refraction model”. You cannot enter the actual temperature near
ground level at the time of the meteor, which was around -10ºC. The
International Standard Atmosphere Base Temperature is +15ºC. Under
average conditions a base temperature of -10ºC would mean slightly
more refraction compared with +15ºC. However the actual refraction
at the time depends on the rate of change of temperature with
altitude. Changes from average conditions can vary refraction at
the horizon by 0.3º or more.
it is casted upwards… and it reaches Earth
surface???
If you use the “reply” button on a post, your reply will
appear immediately after that post. If you use the reply box at the
bottom of the page, you start a new series of replies, not attached
to previous comments and that makes the conversation impossible to
follow
Not really. But human mind can be easily fooled.
Perspective together with the lens distortion may create such
illusion, especially when landscape is not flat. In case of
favourable wheather you can observe how lonely cloud casts shadows
at sunset or sunrise. But if you like to think, that this is not a
shadow, then you can think what you like.
I don’t care what I like, I just care what happened and where the Big One fell down.
Just like anyother one here.
Comments on the provisional trajectory calculated by
meteoric scientists.
http://www.webalice.it/mizar02/articoli/Meteorb.dat They modeled
the visible trajectory as a straight line, which is a good
approximation. The ground track of this trajectory is a great
circle. This great circle equation matches the tabled locations
within ±37 metres. Latitude =
arctan(1.453875*sin(41.029+Longitude)) Enter the Longitude in
degrees and it gives the Latitude where the ground track crosses
that Longitude. Their ground track passes very close to the Yetkul
(Etkul) camera site, but it crosses Lake Chebarkul 2.2km south of
the ice hole. They seem to have used an average of the trajectories
of the largest fragment and smaller fragments. The ground intercept
point of the trajectory is ~54.995ºN, ~59.818ºE with arrival
azimuth ~98.9º and elevation ~16.09º. This location is about 33 km
beyond Lake Chebarkul. As you travel back along the trajectory the
azimuth and elevation both increase. This is because they are
defined by a local coordinate system. At the start of the visible
trajectory the inclination is over 17º.
I don’t see it reaching Earth’s surface. But I also have
difficulty fully understanding what I see. The shadow does not seem
to start at the lit contrail cloud as it should. In fact, an unlit
piece of contrail seems to be blocking the view of the lit contrail
cloud. Or more likely, it is not directly sunlit, but only backlit
by the lit cloud. Yet the dark streak by the time it is near the
camera and heading to the left horizon, is definitely a shadow. It
even seems to be diminishing toward the left as it should. Because
the sun is not a point source, but about a 1/2 degree (1/115
radian) disc, the visible (umbral) shadow it casts is a cone ending
at a distance 115x the size of the object casting the shadow. If
the contrail cloud is a 1km sphere or cylinder, its shadow cone
ends 115km away (at the most). The larger penumbral shadow is
difficult or impossible to notice.
If you use the reply box at the bottom of the page, you post a disconnected comment.
Please use the reply button on the post you want to reply to. This whole thread is now a maze of disconnected comments that are almost impossible to follow.
SITE OWNER: Is there any way to re-thread the comments so that this lot is readable?
I’ve been traveling in Africa pretty much since I posted the original article so: no, I don’t have much opportunity right now to fix anything, mainly just modding comments.
It’s not my fault, this blog platform is ugly and makes my tablet go crazy…
I click on REPLY in notificarion email, I’m brought to a page like https://ogleearth.com[…]//?replytocom=7876#respond , then a youtube clip starts (???) and the textbox at the end of the post appears…
This reply should then associate to comment 7876, let’s see what happens! I’m now trying from PC, but anyway I’ve been brought to post-end-text-box.
Other WordPress blogs have the main reply box at the top so
you see it as you scroll down. Can this one change its box to the
top? WordPress is a clumsy old platform anyway- there are loads of
ways to improve it.
Found 1 kg fragment:
http://rt.com/news/meteorite-rush-biggest-fragment-404/
AS have many, I found your Chelyabinsk meteoroid analysis and blog immensely entertaining; however an issue that I haven’t seen addressed (though touched on briefly in your blog comments by wzrd1 on February 16, 2013 at 03:44 :
“A few minute either way, earlier or later in our mutual orbits, it’d have been a fireball that went back into space again or a city crushing repeat of the Tunguska event- over a populate area” is calculation of the locus of quasi-equiprobable future impact sites, given the vast number of Apollo group objects in closely similar orbits.
Naively, I would think (?) that the earth’s spin on its rotational axis (365 times quicker than the annual orbit shown by Zuluaga and Ferrin in their wonderful Apollo group earth-crossing orbit animation would mean that the a priori “most likely” future impact sites lie in an annular, circumferential ring centered on 55°N latitude (Chelyabinsk)
However, if, say, it’s known by astronomers that Apollo group orbits are widely dispersed “laterally”, possibly of much greater breadth than the earth’s diameter, and/or that relative orbit inclinations are such as to bring Apollo group objects “below” as much as “above” earth at their points of intersection– then, I guess, that would greatly broaden north/south projection of the expected impact hazard zone. At any rate, that’s the question I and other northern hemisphere home owners would like to see addressed.
Thanks
————-
2 fragments of meteorite flew out of the clouds after the explosion:
http://youtu.be/IA1B6aNXPnA
http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/sir-vitin2012/view/687696/
So the asteroid detonated roughly at the same altitude as Austrian Felix Baumgartner record balloon jump….cool.
(2013 March 1st) NASA has a new ground track and orbit:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fireball_130301.html
Yes, I incorporated it into a new post. Please check out https://ogleearth.com/2013/03/chelyabinsk-meteoroid-comparing-paths-with-the-pros-in-google-earth/
When we get most results in we should be able to compare trajectories to videos and see which is the most accurate.
Steve Garcia
Good work in finding the location.
Wikimapia says this is Pumping station “Etkul”.
The pole you give is not the pole with the camera.
If you look at Wikimapia there is a small building beyond the 2 pipelines.
At one point on the video the meteor lights up the east face of this building making it easy to see.
If you draw a line on Wikimapia from the north corner of this building to your camera location the line just touches the south-west corner of the tank.
In the video however, there is a large angluar distance between the north corner of the building and the south-west corner of the tank.
The camera location must be much closer to the tank.
It is not easy to see, but I believe there is a tall tower in the distance seen above the tank that appears higher than the distant trees.
Best seen on the google earth image of June 2009.
54.849332
61.549534
What would be interesting would be a careful search of Chebarkul for any high resolution security camera video that might show a small dark object, the meteorite, fall from the sky.
Wait what if we want to believe the sound of the sonic boom traveling to be unrelated to the meteor. Say a hoax, How do you prove the height of the contrail over Korkino. I have seen some videos that show the contrail SO close to the Camera.
I cannot believe that it is in the mesosphere. As the Mesosphere starts at 30 miles from the surface.
I believe that this meteor was a moonlet of 2012 DA. True, they followed different trajectories and when they passed, the meteorite was way too far from 2012 DA to be a moonlet. But consider that the earth’s gravitational force might have pulled the meteor away from the 2012 DA and out of its orbit. Not inconceivable.
Only if we redefine the law of gravitation, orbital dynamics and make small objects be attracted more than large objects, which would also redefine kinematics.
Totally inconceivable. Especially considering using those known laws, everybody and their brother have put satellites and landers on the moon, as well as a few satellites and probes to mars and outer planets.