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Looks ripped open and bent. |
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The largest shower in historical time occurred in Eastern Siberia on
February 12, 1947. The unique phenonomenon was observed by many
eyewitnesses and has been the subject of numerous, very thorough
studies by the Russian scientists. In full daylight, a fireball moved
from north to south and, about 10:38 A.M. local time, fragmented in the
Earth's atmosphere. When this iron fell it went off like a grenade. The
debris covered an elliptical area of 1.6 km on the snow-covered western
spurs of the Sikhote-Alin mountains. The apparent diameter of the
bolide with its luminous envelope was estimated to be 600 m. The
brightness exceeded that of the sun, according to eyewitnesses, and the
dust trail was observed for several hours before the particles
precipitated or were scattered by the wind. Most of the impacting
meteorites did not, however, penetrate the eluvial and alluvial debris
which covered the bedrock with 1-2 m thick layers, and moreover, at the
time of impact, were solidly frozen to a depth of one meter. Altogether
122 impact holes were found with diameters ranging from 26 to 0.5 m and
with depths ranging from 12 to 1 m. It appears plausible that the
incoming bolide had a mass of about 70 tons fell including dust. It
split finally at an altitude of about 6 km and scattered thousands of
ragged fragments resembling bombshell fragments within an elliptical
area. It is believed that many fragments were detached early in the
flight and that these proceeded as "sputniks" along with the main mass.
The small area over which specimens are scattered suggests that the
meteorite broke up very late in the atmosphere. In many holes the
impacting body had survived as an entity, but in a number of other
holes it had broken up completely. One such hole furnished 464
specimens totaling 256 kg. The largest unbroken individual specimen,
was 1,745 kg, was first discovered in 1950 in a rather small pit.
Several fragments had hit the trees of the dense taiga forest and had
either broken them or damaged them. A 13.6 kg specimen was thus found
firmly embedded in a partly split, 70 cm thick cedar tree.
Email
Address: meteorites@att.net