Science/Tech

Russian Meteorite Reconstructed, Source Discovered [VIDEO]

By Jennifer Broderick | Update Date: Feb 26, 2013 10:35 PM EST

Scientists have reconstructed the interstellar path of a meteor that blew across the Russian skyline this month that injured 1,000 in Chelyabinsk, Russia earlier this month.

The scientists, Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, used information culled from many user generated videos and plotted the trajectory and origin of the earth's largest meteor in 100 years. The researchers said it was only a matter of time before it hit earth, according to the study published this week on ArXiv.org.

The meteor, measuring 55-feet, came from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, making it an Apollo asteroid. These asteroids have typically longer elliptical orbits than Earth which means when they pass between Earth and the sun, they cross our orbital path.

The meteor was travelling at 40,000 mph, scientists estimated in the days after impact. Researchers also looked at information collected from a network of infrasound sensors operated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). Their purpose is to monitor nuclear explosions.

The Russian meteor's infrasound signal was was the strongest ever detected by the CTBTO network. The furthest station to record the sub-audible sound was 9,320 miles away in Antarctica.

"The asteroid was about 17 meters in diameter and weighed approximately 10,000 metric tons," said Western Ontario Professor of Physics Peter Brown in a NASA statement. "It struck Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and broke apart about 12 to 15 miles above Earth's surface. The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT." For comparison, the first atomic bombs produced only 15 to 20 kilotons.

Meanwhile, Russian scientists have done their own research into the meteorite and concluded that it's called a chondrite-the most common kind of space rock near Earth. According to Popular Science reports, it spent 4.5 billion years in space before hitting Russia.

Watch a video below of the preliminary orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid:

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