MGmirkin wrote:Can we replicate rocks exploding in this way by some scaled down experiment (say putting an equivalent rock behind a jet engine or in a blow torch / plasma torch at some experimentally equivalent temperature)?
Its well known that the Shuttle creates plasma around the surface of the leading edge as it re-enters.
I think that would be indicitive of the norm and not just peculiar to the Shuttle.
"I saw this large orb shoot across in an east-southeast direction, on a very steady trajectory," he said. "It was very, very big. And I've seen a lot of shooting stars from all the world as I travelled, but I've never seen one so large. It was very bright yellow, with hints of green in it. It stayed in the air ... for about two to two and a half seconds."
The asteroid fragment is now known to have weighed approximately 10 tonnes when it entered the Earth's atmosphere from an energy estimate derived from infrasound records...The indicated energy is approximately one third of a kiloton of TNT," Brown said.
Dr. Brown also says that a fireball this size only occurs over Canada once every five years on average. About ten fireballs of this size occur somewhere over the Earth each year...The object's speed is calculated to be only roughly 14 km/sec when it entered the atmosphere versus the average of around 20 km/sec...
"Several of the nearby eye witnesses describe sounds that could actually be from the meteorites falling through the sky, but we don't know that for sure yet. The eye witness descriptions are remarkably consistent with each other as to the location," Hildebrand said.
The remarkable consistency of the eyewitness accounts is probably partly explained by the dramatic dust clouds that marked the fireball's path. These clouds remained in the sky without much distortion for several minutes.
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