(meteorobs) Chelyabinsk event - what was precise time? Any radio data?

[James Beauchamp]

Hi Tom, 

I doubt that such an event is able to create gamma rays due to the magnitude of energy involved.  Gamma rays require huge quanta of energy - the kind you get when a nuclei fly apart.  Even if they were created, they would be quickly absorbed by the atmosphere, re-radiating at wavelengths according to the blackbody temperature.

Radar scatter and spectral data suggest at most it's an ionic nature.  Electrons stripped from base states give up the usual Planck distribution of wavelengths, depending on the surface temperature  Red, orange, white, etc... as the temperature rises.

Now, I'm not claiming to be a plasma physicist by any means - just a practical engineering type.    

Military satellites usually monitor for a specific launch plume spectrum because they want to catch the boost phase.  I am extremely envious of the Air Force Space Operations folks because they probably saw the event with great accuracy.  They just can't talk about it.  :(

Atomic detonations are a different animal.  The initial burst is at a blackbody temperature of 10^7 Kelvins, which releases quite a bit of X-ray photons.  Those are almost immediately absorbed by the atmosphere, and re-radiated in IR.  Most of the energy is absorbed and re-emitted in IR wavelengths by our atmosphere.  

In the case of our interloping asteroid visitor, I would be interested what the blackbody temperature of the shock boundary was.  The immediate product probably peaked optically, or even UV.  Unfortunately, the atmosphere absorbs and re-emits the energy into the usual, standard set of spectral lines.  It was probably mixed with the ionic lines of the material being ablated as well (silicon, magnesium, Iron, etc) Strange here - since the atmospheric energy process is pretty much identical, I bet the propagated spectrum was very similar to the post-breakaway signature of an atomic burst.  Probably a baby one at that.  If anything some detonation detectors had a good calibration exercise.

Cheers.







--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Thomas Dorman <drygulch_99 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Thomas Dorman <drygulch_99 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Chelyabinsk event - what was precise time? Any radio data?
To: "Meteor science and meteor observing" <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Date: Friday, March 29, 2013, 7:11 PM

Thomas
What I would like to see if there was any gamma ray burst at the time of this event.The Down side all gamma ray detection systems are classified.Still hold out hope that some meteors event produce gamma rays.I asked Bill Cook if he could look for gamma ray events caused by meteors never heard back from him on the subject.IF any meteor event would causes gamma ray burst the Russian event would be one I would look at.Just thinking out side the box here.
Regards
Thomas Dorman  
--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Thomas Ashcraft <ashcraft at heliotown.com> wrote:
 

From: Thomas Ashcraft <ashcraft at heliotown.com>
Subject: (meteorobs) Chelyabinsk event - what was precise time? Any radio data?
To: "Global Meteor Observing Forum" <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Date: Friday, March 29, 2013, 3:53 PM


Does anyone know the precise timings of the Chelyabinsk meteor strike? 
General timing was at 03:20 UTC on February 15, 2013.

When did the ionization begin? Was there a radio meteor signature 
seconds before it became visible? Are there any VHF forward scatter 
captures?

It appears that the strike was recorded very well in infrasound all 
around the globe.

Is there any evidence of the strike in ULF or ELF or VLF radio data 
anywhere in the world?

Any info welcome!  Thank you in advance.

Thomas Ashcraft  -  Heliotown  -  New Mexico



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