JPL estimates 7000 tons. I bet they are right. Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 15, 2013, at 12:53 PM, Bruce Wegmann <[email protected]> wrote: > A remarkable co-incidence that this fell within a couple days of the > anniversary of the Sikhote-Alin fall (with which it will doubtless be > compared), and during the nearest-ever approach of a significant-sized > asteroid. In the videos I have seen, the terminal flare of this looks > comparable to that of a nuclear detonation; in one the fireball passes > nearly directly overhead, and the ambient light intensity is > blinding...the fears the ancients had of such events is starting to > look more reasonable. The news coming out of this area in next few > days should be intensely interesting. There is one video of the smoke > trail, showing the unusual parallel trails; about 30 seconds in, he > catches the shock wave. It's probably the best record of the actual > acoustic phenomina we'll get...the initial thunder-like blast, > followed by a long series of crackling and popping; Nininger mentions > such descriptions in Find a Falling Star...now we can hear it for > ourselves...remarkable! > I keep hearing the estimated weight of this at 10 tons or > so...that's laughable! If this was about the size of a bus, and > composed of ordinary chondritic rock, the mass would be something on > the order of 270 tons, achondrite, 220 tons, nickel-iron, 800 tons. > There's probably more than a couple hundred tons of pulverized > material in just the smoke trail; compare it to the drawing of the > Sikhote-Alin fall...the resemblance is more than a passing one. In > particular, there is virtually no fragmentation during the > incandescent portion of the flight, in stark contrast to, say, the > fall of the Peekskill bolide. The S-A iron broke up just few miles > above the Earth's surface; I'm guessing something similar may have > happened here, and the amount of recoverable material of comparable > mass. > I'm hoping for another planetary, too, but my money is that we're > looking at another iron fall. My guess is that we'll know for sure in > the next 48 hours, maybe less. > ______________________________________________ > > Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
