* Astronomy

Title: Preliminary estimation of the footprint and survivability of the Chelyabinsk Meteor fragments
Authors: Cristina Parigini, Juan Luis Cano, Rodrigo Haya-Ramos

There are several differences between the planetary entry of space vehicles and that of asteroids. In this work we do investigate the applicability of classical methods and approaches developed for debris analysis to asteroid entry. In particular, the in-house DEBRIS tool, which has been designed and developed to address the debris problem for uncontrolled re-entry objects, is used here to predict the survivability and the ground footprint of asteroid fragments. The results obtained for the Chelyabinsk event are presented as test case. A comparison with the current available information is provided, proving the validity of the proposed approach.

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Field Museum To Receive Piece Of Russian Meterorite

A chunk of that meteorite is coming to Chicago's Field Museum.
The Chelyabinsk Meteorite will join the Field Museum's collection of more than 6,500 meteorites at the Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics. Scientists from all over come to the Field Museum to study the largest non-governmental collection in the world. 
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Title: The orbit of the Chelyabinsk event impactor as reconstructed from amateur and public footage
Authors: Jorge I. Zuluaga (IF/FCEN, UdeA), Ignacio Ferrin (IF/FCEN, UdeA), Stefan Geens (Ogle Earth)

A ballistic reconstruction of a meteoroid orbit can be made if enough information is available about its trajectory inside the atmosphere. A few methods have been devised in the past and used in several cases to trace back the origin of small impactors. On February 15, 2013, a medium-sized meteoroid hit the atmosphere in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, causing damage in several large cities. The incident, the largest registered since the Tunguska event, was witnessed by many thousands and recorded by hundreds of amateur and public video recording systems. The amount and quality of the information gathered by those systems is sufficient to attempt a reconstruction of the trajectory of the impactor body in the atmosphere, and from this the orbit of the body with respect to the Sun. Using amateur and public footage taken in four different places close to the event, we have determined precisely the properties of the entrance trajectory and the orbit of the Chelyabinsk event impactor. We found that the object entered the atmosphere at a velocity ranging from 16.0 to 17.4 km/s in a grazing trajectory, almost directly from the east, with an azimuth of velocity vector of 285°, and with an elevation of 15.8° with respect to the local horizon. The orbit that best fits the observations has, at a 95% confidence level, a semi-major axis a = 1.26 ±0.05 AU, eccentricity e = 0.44 ±0.03, argument of perihelion \omega=95.5° ±2° and longitude of ascending node \Omega= 326.5° ±0.3°. Using these properties the object can be classified as belonging to the Apollo family of asteroids. The absolute magnitude of the meteoroid was H= 25.8, well below the threshold for its detection and identification as a Potential Hazardous Asteroid (PHA). This result would imply that present efforts intended to detect and characterise PHAs are incomplete.

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Meteorite perfume to be launched in Chelyabinsk

Authorities in the Chelyabinsk Region, which was hit by a meteorite on February 15, on Tuesday announced plans to launch a new perfume with the scent of the celestial body, which brought the Urals city to international fame.
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