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ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

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Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#71
post #17

"Safely" because it is expected to burn completely before impact with the surface? If not, then fair to call it a potential hazard, even if a small one?

These things don't even need to impact the surface to cause massive damage. They can disintegrate mid-air or just pass earth closely and the resulting shock wave will already be devastating. Examples: Tunguska explosion and the Chelyabinsk meteor. At their speeds they're impacting the atmosphere in a similar way a bullet impacts water (it disintegrates and loses speed rapidly, causing a big splash).

Ah yes, the Chelyabinsk meteor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ch5mtxmLk

Also, here's a great recording of the shock wave, illustrating your point:

https://youtu.be/TKXZ5dwwTyc

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#72
post #21

Wow!! From just east of Aachen, perfectly visible. Turning from a point of light coming down into a "oh wow that's really cool" into an actual fireball at >400 km horizontal distance! Holy crap that was exhilarating Edit: I was expecting that it would be too far away, also with Aachen's city glow and the highway, that nothing would be visible, or at best, a point appearing and disappearing at basically the same locat…

> Quite sad it defocused

Look at it from the bright side. You will never forget to manually focus the next time a meteorite passes by. :)

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#73
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two related reasons. 1m is quite small, so it needs to be close for us to detect it. Since we don’t have many observations, the error in estimates of its orbital path is high. In general, it also is extra difficult to calculate the exact last little bit of a trajectory that will impact earth because the force models start getting really wild as something gets very close to earth - approximations stop working.

> it also is extra difficult to calculate the exact last little bit of a trajectory that will impact earth because the force models start getting really wild What kind of forces? I assume you're talking about the space part, before atmosphere, so I would assume it's the same gravity effects that you also get in space, just that gravity is a bit larger value. I wrote a gravity simulator at lgms.nl/p/badgravity so I ha…

I actually do mean atmospheric effects. The strength of atmosphere effects is usually what makes the difference between a mere close approach and a collision. Those effects are hard to model exactly.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My (lay, nonexpert) understanding is: - The centroid of probability is near Rouen. - Earlier/later impact probability would be along a path along the movement/orbit of the impactor. I'm going to guess that that's largely east-west track, though with a possible orbital inclination. - The probability distribution across that range is likely far higher near the centre than at the extremes. - Relative motion of Earth's r…

Hmmm, interesting analysis, but 12,000km is 3x wider than continental US. Based on the plot from ESA's projection, the track over the +-10m period is much smaller than France. I think the issue with your reasoning is that when you are dealing with orbits, you cannot really talk separately about position and (relative) velocity. Instead, for a given orbital trajectory, the position completely defines the speed. Moreov…

The 12,000 km estimate is straight maths assuming a (fairly typical) relative orbital velocity of ~20,000 km/s for the meteroid, and looking at distance travelled in 10 minutes.

Mind that the geometry of the collision might truncate that considerably. Again, I'm not claiming expertise here, and the "straight maths" rubric isn't a justification for correctness so much as explaining how I arrived at the number.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#75
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do some astrophotography and I won't ever forget watching one night during the Perseids as a massive fireball streamed across the sky, completely unexpected, the thing was in the sky for a proper 2-3 seconds. I remember being freezing that night, and it was about a 1 hour drive to get to the location, absolutely worth it though!

Was that in 2016? I've been watching meteor showers for about 40 years, but the 2016 Peseids was just amazing. At it's peak, we were getting 2 or 3 large meteors per minute. We couldn't stop saying "wow" about one before another would streak 1/3 across the sky. And I'm sure that we saw over a dozen bolides, at least one or two bright enough to cast shadows on the ground. It was that spectacular. I don't remember when…

Probably closer to 2012 or 2013 but I had been watching them almost every year up until 2017 or so. They never disappoint but definitely some years are a different kind of spectacle :)

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#76
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do some astrophotography and I won't ever forget watching one night during the Perseids as a massive fireball streamed across the sky, completely unexpected, the thing was in the sky for a proper 2-3 seconds. I remember being freezing that night, and it was about a 1 hour drive to get to the location, absolutely worth it though!

I still do astrophotography - but nothing will ever top the broad daylight bolide I saw over France 30 years ago aged 10 or so - huge blue fireball labouring its way across the sky before disintegrating in an explosion as bright as the sun. I actually dropped to my knees in awe, the garbage I was carrying utterly forgotten.

I wonder what percentage of people will go a whole lifetime without seeing a bolide, or even a shooting star. Dark sky areas are harder and harder to come across as well, and I bet looking up at the sky for a few minutes is becoming more of a rarity as well.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#78
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still do astrophotography - but nothing will ever top the broad daylight bolide I saw over France 30 years ago aged 10 or so - huge blue fireball labouring its way across the sky before disintegrating in an explosion as bright as the sun. I actually dropped to my knees in awe, the garbage I was carrying utterly forgotten.

I wonder what percentage of people will go a whole lifetime without seeing a bolide, or even a shooting star. Dark sky areas are harder and harder to come across as well, and I bet looking up at the sky for a few minutes is becoming more of a rarity as well.

Even with pure Sky, a lot of people don't look up. I think its more a matter of education. We have to learn to young people to watch the Sky, and how to watch it (being able to identify stars, constellations, the ecliptic plane, ...).

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, interesting analysis, but 12,000km is 3x wider than continental US. Based on the plot from ESA's projection, the track over the +-10m period is much smaller than France. I think the issue with your reasoning is that when you are dealing with orbits, you cannot really talk separately about position and (relative) velocity. Instead, for a given orbital trajectory, the position completely defines the speed. Moreov…

The 12,000 km estimate is straight maths assuming a (fairly typical) relative orbital velocity of ~20,000 km/s for the meteroid, and looking at distance travelled in 10 minutes. Mind that the geometry of the collision might truncate that considerably. Again, I'm not claiming expertise here, and the "straight maths" rubric isn't a justification for correctness so much as explaining how I arrived at the number.

Understood! My point was that, while dimensional analysis almost always works (including for this problem), you have to make sure you are using the right dimensionful quantities. In this case that there are constraints here due to orbital mechanics that were not respected, and hence the 12,000km is way off.

To successfully apply DA in this problem, we should start by noting that since we are talking about impact, it is a foregone conclusion that the earth and the asteroid will be in the same place at the same time (your application instead was related to figuring out where earth and asteroid would be in relation to each over at a given time).

Once you've specified that they will be at the same place, asking where it lands _on earth_ amounts to asking which part of the earth will be facing the asteroid at that time. Since there is a quoted uncertainty of +- 10min, the range of outcomes is almost entirely defined by the angular distance that the earth with travel in those 20min -- about half a time zone!

This gets us much closer to the actual projection from ESA. The actual central location at the nominal time is defined almost entirely by the direction the asteroid is approaching from -- i.e. the relative inclination and phase anomaly of the orbits. So, the rest of the projected range can be chalked up to uncertainty on the geometric fit of the object's orbit based on astrometric observations. Which we can't apply DA to without further information.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#80
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it also is extra difficult to calculate the exact last little bit of a trajectory that will impact earth because the force models start getting really wild What kind of forces? I assume you're talking about the space part, before atmosphere, so I would assume it's the same gravity effects that you also get in space, just that gravity is a bit larger value. I wrote a gravity simulator at lgms.nl/p/badgravity so I ha…

I actually do mean atmospheric effects. The strength of atmosphere effects is usually what makes the difference between a mere close approach and a collision. Those effects are hard to model exactly.

Oh, I did not know that this 'last mile' often makes the difference between collisions and close approaches! Interesting. Indeed, I have to remember that atmosphere is a scale and not a hard boundary. Like, I kinda know that, but just how far up there are still particles that are of significance...
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