Chelyabinsk Meteor Sent Plume of Meteor Dust Around the World
Posted on August 19, 2013
A meteor weighing 10,000 metric tons exploded 14 miles above Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15, 2013. The meteor released 30 times the energy as the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. This was a lot of energy, but it was miniscule compared to the ground-impacting meteor that triggered mass extinctions, including the dinosaurs. That meteor released about 1 billion times the energy of the Hiroshima atom bomb.
The Chelyabinsk meteor sent a plume of meteor dust around the world that was still detectable three months after the event. Scientists were able to track and study the meteor plume for months using sensitive instruments on the Suomi NPP satellite.
Atmospheric physicist Nick Gorkavyi and colleagues combined a series of satellite measurements with atmospheric models to simulate how the plume from the bolide explosion evolved as the stratospheric jet stream carried it around the Northern Hemisphere. Just four days after the explosion, the faster, higher portion of the plume had snaked its way entirely around the Northern Hemisphere and back to Chelyabinsk. The plume's evolution continued beyond this point. The scientists say that at least three months later, a detectable belt of bolide dust persisted around Earth. Take a look: