Ab initio strewn field for small asteroids impacts

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Carbognani, Albino, Fenucci, Marco, Salerno, Raffaele, Micheli, Marco
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Carbognani, Albino
Fenucci, Marco
Salerno, Raffaele
Micheli, Marco
author_facet Carbognani, Albino
Fenucci, Marco
Salerno, Raffaele
Micheli, Marco
contents In recent years, nine small near-Earth asteroids were discovered a few hours before the collision with the Earth: these are about one meter in diameter objects that have all disintegrated in the atmosphere, generating bright fireballs without causing damage. In some cases, several meteorites have been recovered. In cases like these, it is not always possible to triangulate the fireball generated by the asteroid's fall to circumscribe the strewn field position. For this reason, it can be important to compute a strewn field "ab initio", i.e. propagating the asteroid's trajectory in the atmosphere starting from the initial conditions obtained directly from the heliocentric orbit, coupled with some reasonable hypothesis about the mean strength and the mass of the fragments to "sample" the strewn field. By adopting a simple fragmentation model coupled with a real atmospheric profile, useful results can be obtained to locate the strewn field, as we will show for the recent falls of asteroids 2024 BX1, 2023 CX1 and 2008 TC3. It was possible to locate the strewn field of our study cases with an uncertainty of the order of one kilometre with the mean strength in the range 0.5-5 MPa and the mass of the possible final fragments in the 1 g - 1 kg range. We have also verified that a pancake phase after fragmentation is unnecessary to locate the strewn field for a small asteroid fall.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_15823
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ab initio strewn field for small asteroids impacts
Carbognani, Albino
Fenucci, Marco
Salerno, Raffaele
Micheli, Marco
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
In recent years, nine small near-Earth asteroids were discovered a few hours before the collision with the Earth: these are about one meter in diameter objects that have all disintegrated in the atmosphere, generating bright fireballs without causing damage. In some cases, several meteorites have been recovered. In cases like these, it is not always possible to triangulate the fireball generated by the asteroid's fall to circumscribe the strewn field position. For this reason, it can be important to compute a strewn field "ab initio", i.e. propagating the asteroid's trajectory in the atmosphere starting from the initial conditions obtained directly from the heliocentric orbit, coupled with some reasonable hypothesis about the mean strength and the mass of the fragments to "sample" the strewn field. By adopting a simple fragmentation model coupled with a real atmospheric profile, useful results can be obtained to locate the strewn field, as we will show for the recent falls of asteroids 2024 BX1, 2023 CX1 and 2008 TC3. It was possible to locate the strewn field of our study cases with an uncertainty of the order of one kilometre with the mean strength in the range 0.5-5 MPa and the mass of the possible final fragments in the 1 g - 1 kg range. We have also verified that a pancake phase after fragmentation is unnecessary to locate the strewn field for a small asteroid fall.
title Ab initio strewn field for small asteroids impacts
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.15823