Flight and decay

According to the video meteor radiant ( the point in the sky , which drove up ) was to the left and above the rising sun. The car was moving approximately in a westerly direction , entered into the atmosphere at an angle of approximately 20 ° to the horizontal speed of about 19 ​​km / s ( 64 thousand . Km / h) .

The beginning of the trip was observed at 9:20 local time ( 4:20 GMT ) . Event was accompanied by a glare , which reached a climax when the brightness of the Sun and a strong shock wave . According to witnesses the events after the passage of a meteor air had the smell of gunpowder .

The explosion of the meteor has been registered by seventeen of the 45 measurements of infrasound stations operating within the framework of the Comprehensive Nuclear -Test -Ban Treaty Organization . The sound of the explosion in the range of infrasound has been measured even in away fifteen thousand kilometers research station in Antarctica . It was the most powerful eruption so far captured by the sensors of the CTBTO . On the basis of measurements of the CTBTO station , it is estimated that the energy cut off in the atmosphere corresponds to the energy of explosion close to 0.5 megatons of TNT ( about 40 times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima ) . According to estimates by astronomers mass meteoroidu was about seven to ten thousand tons , with a diameter of about fifteen to seventeen feet. Lot object from the entry meteoroidu into the atmosphere until the disintegration of the car took 32.5 seconds . The disintegration of the car took place not far from Chelyabinsk at a height of 29.7 km above the Earth's surface. Then the meteor generated high brightness , 30 times stronger than sunlight , so many people suffered sunburn .

The shock wave emanating from flying at a slight angle to the horizontal of the car was distributed almost perpendicular to the surface of the earth. On the basis of the damage it is estimated that the pressure was 10-20 times greater than atmospheric pressure. The shock wave caused seismic waves that were recorded by seismic stations . The shock had a magnitude of 2.7 on the Richter scale .

It is estimated that it was the largest asteroid , which hit the Earth since the so-called . Tunguska event in 1908. In 1949, in the vicinity of Chelyabinsk similar event took place , there fell the rain of meteorites , which found twenty fragments of meteorites with a total weight of two hundred pounds.