What if it falls? How to survive after an asteroid fall - tips. A huge asteroid will fall to earth in February. When should a meteorite fall to earth?

Asteroid DA14, after meeting Earth, will go to another “family”Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered in February 2012 by astronomers at the Spanish La Sagra Observatory. Calculations have shown that on February 15, 2013 at 19.25 GMT (23.25 Moscow time) it will fly at a minimum distance from the Earth - at a distance of about 27.7 thousand kilometers from the surface.

“It appears that the differences in the composition of meteorites are due to the fact that their progenitors, which arose in the solar system approximately four billion years ago, consisted of extremely heterogeneous layers of rocks. I would not be surprised if all the bodies from the main asteroid belt arose from the decay of extremely small number of larger objects,” says Stanley Dermott from the University of Florida in Gainesville (USA).

Guests from the sky

Over the past few decades, scientists around the world have been actively monitoring near-Earth asteroids and conducting a kind of cosmic “census” among them, trying to understand how dangerous they are for humanity. There are so many asteroids in near-Earth space that astronomers have had to create special scales to assess how likely they are to fall to Earth.

Despite all this and the gigantic number of asteroids discovered over the past recent years Using ground-based telescopes and the WISE infrared orbital observatory, many large asteroids and countless smaller objects the size of the Chelyabinsk meteorite that fell to Earth in February 2013 remain undiscovered by humanity.

As NASA reported back in 2011 at the first presentation of the NEOWISE catalog, today we know of only five thousand asteroids approximately one hundred meters in size, while their total number is estimated at several tens of thousands. The number of smaller objects within the main asteroid belt may be even greater, reaching up to a million.

Dermott and his colleagues revealed unusual fact, which brings together almost all of these celestial bodies and could make them easier to find and catalog in the near future by studying the five largest "families" of asteroids.

Astronomers use this word to describe groups of asteroids that orbit similarly and have similar compositions and other properties that presumably indicate their common origin. As a rule, they are called by the name of either the largest or the first discovered “member” of the family.

The largest “collectives” of asteroids, for example, the families of Flora, Vesta, Pulana, Eulalia and Nisa, include tens of thousands of small and large objects, whose diameter can reach several tens of kilometers.

Consequences of cosmic billiards

The authors of the article conducted a new “census” among these five families of asteroids, “blindly” analyzing the nature of their orbital motion, brightness and all other physical properties all asteroids living in the inner part of the main belt.

Similarly, as the astronomer notes, his team tried to “catch” those representatives of the five main families of asteroids who, for some reason, were forced to slightly change their orbit in the past.

In these searches, scientists relied on a simple pattern that has been known to astronomers for many decades - if an asteroid belongs to any family, then the angle of inclination of its orbit and its elongation strictly depend on its brightness.

These calculations unexpectedly showed that about half of the asteroids previously considered “orphan” actually belong to one of these five families. In total, according to the planetary scientist, approximately 85% of the inhabitants of the part of the asteroid belt closest to us belong to one of these five groups, and the nature of the remaining 15% remains unknown.

If this is so, then why do the new members of these families have such variegated mineral and chemical composition? As Dermott explains, the metallic meteorites are most likely fragments of the cores of these "mega-asteroids", and the various rocky objects are fragments of the mantle, crust and other layers of their subsurface.

The Chelyabinsk meteorite turned out to be the same age as solar system “This means that the “material of creation” has fallen into our hands,” said academician Mikhail Marov. He clarified that the age of the meteorite that fell near Chelyabinsk in mid-February was obtained by analyzing the isotopic composition of the substance.

Opening general nature of most near-Earth asteroids, according to the astronomer, is extremely important in the context of protecting the Earth from possible asteroid “attacks.” Now it will be easier for scientists to predict the chances of a similar outcome of events and evaluate their consequences, knowing that they have a similar origin and composition.

In addition, their study, as Dermott concludes, will allow us to understand the conditions under which the “embryos” of the Earth and other planets, some of which were the progenitors of asteroids, were formed. This, in turn, will help scientists better and faster search for potential twins of our planet in other star systems.

The Ural meteorite distracted scientists for some time from another space object - an asteroid, which is approaching the Earth at these moments. According to calculations, it will approach its minimum distance to our planet at 23:20 Moscow time. This unique event will be broadcast live on NASA's website. Residents of Asia and Australia, as well as possibly some areas, will be able to see the asteroid Eastern Europe.

In a little more than 2 hours, the DA14 object will pass by the Earth at a distance of 28 thousand kilometers - this is closer than some satellites fly. If this asteroid weighing 130 tons and with a diameter of 45 meters collided with our planet, the explosion would be equal to one thousand Hiroshimas. There was even an assumption that the meteorite that fell in the Urals could be part of this space monster and that other, larger ones would follow it. However, most scientists do not see a connection with the DA14 asteroid and the Ural meteorite.

“As for whether Armageddon threatens us or not, it is now known for certain. All asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter that bring such a catastrophe to the Earth on a large scale, they are all known and have well-known orbits, they are all cataloged and observed There is no danger from them,” assured Lidia Rykhlova, head of the space astrometry department at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.

While they were monitoring the large asteroid, they overlooked the meteorite that fell in the Urals. However, it was almost impossible to see it before entering the atmosphere - neither civilian observatories nor missile defense radars can do this - the size is too small and the speed is too high. The military says that even if such a meteorite is discovered, destroy such objects modern systems Air defense is not yet capable. Already in retrospect, scientists derived data from a celestial body that had already fallen in the Urals - mass several tons, speed 15 kilometers per second, angle of incidence - 45 degrees, shock wave power - several kilotons. At an altitude of 50 kilometers, the object collapsed into 3 parts and almost completely burned up in the atmosphere.

“No more than 10 meters in diameter, it flew at supersonic speed and therefore generated a shock wave. This shock wave caused all this destruction, people were injured not by meteorite fragments, but by the shock wave. Now, if a supersonic plane would have passed on the same altitude, for example, God forbid above Moscow, the destruction would have been the same,” said the deputy director of the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg Sergey Lamzin.

Any space object, which reached the Earth's atmosphere and left a trace in it, scientists call it a meteorite. As a rule, they are small in size and, moving in the air at a speed of several kilometers per second, completely burn out. And yet, about 5 tons of cosmic matter fall to Earth every day in the form of dust and small grains of sand. Almost all space guests come to us from the so-called asteroid belt, which is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

“A kind of trash heap of the Solar system, where all the debris is concentrated. Collisions between asteroids occur in this belt. As a result, certain debris is formed that can acquire an orbit that intersects the orbit of the Earth,” said Mikhail Nazarov.

However, some scientists believe that it was not a meteorite that fell near Chelyabinsk. They are confident that no one will ever find any debris, just as they did not find the fragments of the Tunguska meteorite. We are most likely talking about a cooled comet, which consists of frozen gases.

“If the nucleus of a first-generation comet invades the Earth, then it burns up almost completely in the Earth’s atmosphere, and it is impossible to find any remains on the surface. This is similar to the Tunguska phenomenon, when no remains of the body were found, but there was a large fall of forest over a large area and the trees were all heavily charred,” said Vladislav Leonov, a researcher at the Department of Space Astrometry at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Nevertheless, the search for meteorite remains near Chelyabinsk continues. At the same time, not only rescuers and scientists are searching; now dozens of meteorite hunters have already rushed to the area of ​​the supposed fall. The price of some of them on the black market can reach several thousand rubles per gram.

The diameter of the celestial body is about 40 meters

Western astronomers have discovered a space object twice the size of the famous one Chelyabinsk meteorite, a meeting with whom may take place in 2017. The scale of possible destruction may be significantly greater than in the latter case.

According to preliminary calculations by American astronomer Judith Rees of the McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas, the diameter of the new asteroid is about 40 meters, which, if it collides with the surface of our planet, will cause devastating damage several times greater than the consequences of the crash of a smaller meteorite in the Chelyabinsk region in February 2013, reports astronomical astrowatch.net.

A dangerous celestial body was discovered in October 2012 by an observatory in Hawaii. In the same month, he passed at a dangerously close distance from the Earth, 95,000 kilometers, which is equal to the distance to the Moon. Asteroid 2012 TC4 is expected to pass its closest approach to Earth on October 12, 2017.

Now experts are trying to establish the exact orbit of the asteroid and calculate its chances of a collision, which so far, apparently, are quite low - only 0.00055%, but, nevertheless, they still exist.

According to European Space Agency expert Detlef Koshni, the chances of a meteorite colliding with the Earth are minimal—“one in a million.” The same point of view is shared by Makoto Yoshikawa from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Let us recall that two years ago, on February 15, 2013, the largest known celestial body to fall to earth since the Tunguska meteorite in 1908 took place.

The flash of light was visible in neighboring regions, as well as in neighboring Kazakhstan. The shock wave broke glass in more than 7 thousand buildings. There were no casualties in the emergency, but more than 1.6 thousand people were injured and 52 people were hospitalized.

Scientists estimated the mass of the object before entering the atmosphere at 13 thousand tons, and its size at 19.8 meters.

A few minutes after the explosion (according to eyewitnesses, from 77 seconds to three minutes or more, depending on the distance), a shock wave came to the ground. The impact zone of the shock wave on the surface was about 130 kilometers long and 50 kilometers wide.

The area affected by the shock wave was 6.5 thousand square kilometers.

Only 4-6 tons of meteorite matter reached the ground, which is 0.03-0.05% of the original mass, while 76% evaporated and the rest turned into dust.

A study of the meteorite substance showed that the Chelyabinsk asteroid was one of the ordinary chondrites of type LL5, its age is about 4.45 billion years, and around the time of its birth it experienced a powerful collision with another object. Chemical analysis showed that traces remained in the meteorite organic compounds containing sulfur and oxygen.

Witnesses of the event interviewed by scientists said that it was painful for them to look at the car. About 25 people out of 1.1 thousand respondents reported that they received burns, 315 felt heat, and 415 felt heat from the fireball's radiation.

The meteorite, called "Chelyabinsk", turned out to be the largest known celestial body to fall to Earth since the Tunguska meteorite in 1908. Such an event occurs on average once every 100 years.

The “Chelyabinsk event” also became significant for politics: it forced the authorities of the United States, Russia and the European Union to once again return to the problem of the asteroid-comet danger.

According to scientists, the first to see the fall of a space object called WF9 will be residents of Great Britain. The asteroid was discovered back in November 2016, but reports of the threat have only now appeared.

ON THE TOPIC

The object, with a diameter of 500 meters to a kilometer, is expected to reach Earth on February 25, reports the Daily Mail. The giant was 51 million kilometers away from us.

Astronomer Damir Demin claims that if an asteroid hits Earth, coastal cities will be covered by giant tsunamis. The expert is confident that it will fall on our planet, reports the online publication M24. According to him, WF9 flew out of the Nibiru system. According to theories doomsday, Nibiru will destroy life on Earth.

However, not all astronomers share the pessimistic sentiments of their colleagues. General Director of the non-profit partnership Center for Planetary Protection, Anatoly Zaitsev, claims that if an object is significant, scientists immediately calculate its trajectory.

“And if he really did threaten, then not only NASA would know about him. Therefore, for now the information is very doubtful to draw any conclusions,” Nation News quotes the specialist. There are also a number of his colleagues who are confident that the asteroid will simply burn up in the atmosphere of our planet and will not harm anyone.

The Sikhote-Alin meteorite fell on February 12, 1947 at 10.38 near the village of Beitsukhe in the Ussuri taiga, in the Sikhote-Alin mountains on Far East. Having fragmented in the atmosphere, it fell as iron rain over an area of ​​35 square meters. km. The meteorite left behind more than a hundred craters with a diameter of up to 28 m and a depth of up to 6 m and a lot of debris. Total weight The fallen substance, according to astronomers, was about 70 tons; they managed to collect 27 tons - more than 3,500 fragments.

The largest of them weighs 1745 kg.

The Sikhote-Alin meteorite entered the top ten largest meteorites peace. Now samples of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite are presented in all more or less large museums in the world.

Soviet astronomer Nikolai Divari described the fall as follows: “At the very beginning, the fireball was noticed in the form of a relatively small rocky body, quickly moving across the sky at a certain angle to the horizon. The size and brightness of this star increased until a critical moment in its movement arrived: the star flashed with a blindingly bright light, scattered into pieces and, leaving behind a fiery tail, continued to rapidly approach the earth's surface. At this stage, the fall of the fireball was a spectacular picture, which is extremely rare for humans to observe. Describing big arc a fireball flew across the sky, scattering golden sparks on all sides and constantly breaking up in the air.” With sounds similar to artillery fire, fragments of the meteorite fell to the ground, causing a small earthquake.

Windows in apartments rattled, glass fell out, plaster fell, and snow flew off the roofs of houses.

The trace left by the flying meteorite in the sky finally dissipated only in the evening.

The meteorite was thoroughly examined thanks to a large number material. Analysis showed that it consisted of 94% iron, 5.5% nickel, and 0.38% cobalt. The remaining components are carbon, chlorine, phosphorus and sulfur. As Soviet astronomer Vasily Fesenkov noted, the meteorite was not a monolith, but consisted of many randomly oriented crystals, “poorly connected to each other.” This probably contributed to its disintegration into many parts.

The meteorite was classified as chemical group II B An, which includes 2.7% iron meteorites.

According to Fesenkov's calculations, the celestial body came from the central part of the asteroid belt and weighed about 100 tons upon entry into the atmosphere.

The rough structure indicates that it was formed during the crystallization of a liquid melt of iron, nickel and cobalt at complete absence oxygen. Given the size of the meteorite, this process should have taken about a million years.

The search for the meteorite crash site began the very next day. Two planes flew around the taiga, but could not find anything. Later, a group of schoolchildren from a neighboring village under the guidance of a teacher set out to search, but after traveling several tens of kilometers through the forest on skis, they also found nothing.

Pilots of the Far Eastern Geological Department were the first to discover the site of the meteorite fall.

On February 15, returning to their airfield, they noticed a large dark area against the backdrop of a snow-covered forest.

In April, an expedition of ten people led by Fesenkov arrived at the crash site. The task of the expedition was to study the crash site and collect all the parts of the meteorite. The fragments, covered with a layer of clay, looked little different from rock fragments, so it was necessary to use a mine detector.

One of the large fragments actually lay right on the road, and people walked on it every day without noticing.

Some fragments got stuck in tree trunks, others were able to pierce trunks with a diameter of half a meter. Spiral-shaped fragmentation samples allowed Fesenkov to conclude that at the time of the fall the temperature of the meteorite mass was about 300 ° C.

Throughout next years 15 more expeditions were made to the site of the meteorite fall, each consisting of about 30 people. The scattering contour of meteorite fragments was outlined, their distribution over the area was established, and the craters were described in detail. In 1983 and 1987, groups of specialists led by an astronomer were sent there. By that time, the village of Beitsukhe had already been renamed Meteoritny, two streams in the area of ​​the fall became Bolshoi and Maly Meteoritny. The area itself was declared a natural monument.

In 1957 they came out postage stamps with an image of a meteorite.

They were created on the basis of a painting by an artist who, at the time of the meteorite’s appearance, painted a local landscape and captured a passing celestial body on it.