The Trajectory, Orbit, and Acoustical analysis of the Park Forest Fireball

Computer Science – Sound

Scientific paper

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6022 Impact Phenomena, 6205 Asteroids And Meteoroids, 6245 Meteors

Scientific paper

The Park Forest meteorite fall of March 27th, 2003 was the first large bolide to occur over a major urban area in modern history. As such, characterizing various aspects of the event has been the subject of particular interest. This has been made possible due to the wide array of different instrument detections. Instrumental recordings of the Park Forest fireball include eyewitness video, optical and infrared light observations by orbiting satellites and acoustic recordings by audible sound, infrasonic and seismic instruments. Optical and infrared satellite observations fused with data from ground based video have allowed an accurate determination of the fireball's trajectory and velocity. The trajectory along with modelled atmospheric conditions has in turn allowed the source regions for audible acoustic and seismic recordings of the fireball's sound waves to be identified. These sources are consistent with the sound waves originating from several major fragmentation points along the fireball's path. Infrasonic recordings appear to be typical of stratospherically ducted waves. The best estimates of the original size of Park Forest is ~1.5m with an observed entry velocity of 20 km/s implying an energy of ~0.5 kTon TNT equivalent. Finally by employing the same model atmosphere, dark flight paths of the soon-to-be meteorites were modelled using the major fragmentation altitudes as possible ejection points. Results show that fragments ranging in size from 5 kg to 2 g agree very well with recovery observations, falling within and around the known meteorite strewn field and being released at altitudes from ~38 - 22 km. This suggests that fragments may have ejected at wide a range of altitudes and that the bolide travelled through the atmosphere as a conglomeration of fragments and not as a single large stone. The observed fragmentation occurred under ram pressures of 2-7 MPa, with early minor disruption under at less than 1 MPa. This provides an estimate for the limiting tensile strength for meter-class near-Earth asteroids implications of this observation will be discussed in the talk.

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