Physics
Scientific paper
Jun 1992
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992ecai.confr..14h&link_type=abstract
Presented at the ECA Intercept Conference, Los Alamos, NM, 14-16 Jan. 1992
Physics
Asteroids, Earth Atmosphere, Energy Dissipation, Fragmentation, Impact, Kinetic Energy, Blast Loads, Destruction, Shock Waves
Scientific paper
The fragmentation of a small asteroid in the atmosphere greatly increases its cross sections from aerodynamic braking and energy dissipation. At a typical impact velocity of 22 km/s, the atmosphere absorbs more than half the kinetic energy of stony meteoroids with diameters, DM less than 250 meters and iron meteoroids with DM less than 60 meters. Most of this energy dissipation occurs in a fraction of a scale height, which causes large meteoroids to appear to 'explode' or 'flare' at the end of their visible paths. The dissipation of energy in the atmosphere reduces the damage due to direct impacts (e.g., craters and tsunamis), but it produces a blast wave than can cause considerable damage to structures on the ground. The area of destruction around the impact point in which the over pressure in the blast wave exceeds 4 pounds/inch2 = 2.8x105 dynes/cm3, which is enough to knock over trees and destroy buildings, increases rapidly from zero for chondritic asteroids less than 50 meters in diameter (9 megatons) to about 2000 square km for those 80 meters in diameter (40 megatons), the approximate diameter of the Tunguska impactor of 1908. The area of destruction produced by the blast wave from the impact of stony asteroids between 70 meters and 200 meters in diameter is up to twice as great as it would be without fragmentation.
Goda Patrick M.
Hills Jack G.
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