[meteorite-list] Sikhote-Alin

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:53:35 2004
Message-ID: <3DFF6A82.D3E94DF1_at_lehrer.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Tom aka james Knudson inquired:

> I was wondering if any one knows or has a good idea of how long
> it took for Sikhote-alin fireball to create all those beautiful oriented
> individuals?

Hello Tom and List,

Probably something between 4 and 15 seconds. The Treysa iron was first observed
at a height of 83 km, it reached its end point
(zone of retardation, Hemmungspunkt) at a height of 16 km and
the length of the trajectory was about 81 km. Its initial velocity
was > 20 km/s (Sikhote-Alin: 14.5 km/s) and the angle between
the trajectory and the horizontal 55° (Sikhote-Alin: 41°). I have
no information about the length of the trajectory of the S-A iron
nor about the height when it was first observed but due to its enormous
(pre-atmospheric) mass it penetrated deeper into the atmosphere and probably
reached its end point at an altitude of about 5 km.

Anyway I guess that it took no longer than about 10 seconds
"to create all those beautiful oriented individuals".

Best regards,

Bernd
Received on Tue 17 Dec 2002 01:18:42 PM PST