NASA Dryden Participating in Meteor Event Data Collection

Release: 00-10

NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., participated in a data
recovery mission for one of the largest meteor events of the past 10 years.

One of Dryden’s Airborne Sciences ER-2 aircraft flew to the Yukon Territory
of northwestern Canada on January 21, 2000, in an effort to collect
atmospheric samples of a very large meteor that exploded at an altitude of
25 kilometers (15.6 miles) on January 18, 2000. The region, near the town of
Carcross, is predominantly unpopulated.

Samples of the debris cloud and vapor trail were gathered at an altitude of
65,000 feet with an instrument called the Aerosol Particulate Sampler (APS).
The APS is a system of two small five-inch by four-inch paddles that deploy
simultaneously from the ER-2’s left wingtip. The paddles have silicone oil
on them that, when exposed to the airstream for a sufficient amount of time,
collect particles from the stratosphere. Then the paddles are withdrawn into
hermetic enclosures to avoid contamination during the aircraft’s return to
Dryden. The paddles will be removed and sent to NASA’s Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas for analysis.

Dryden’s ER-2 also carried a camera, called the Dual RC-10, capable of
taking black and white photos of eight-mile wide swaths of the region in an
effort to locate any impact craters and other scarring of the earth, such as
flattened areas of forest, that may have been caused by the explosion and
impact of meteorites that separated from the meteor. Scientists are very
interested in discovering the composition of the meteor in an effort to
learn more about its origins and makeup. The Department of Defense is
interested in knowing the composition of the meteor in order to calibrate
sensors that detected the fireball. Collection of cosmic dust or meteorite
samples would permit this.

The meteor detonated with the energy of two to three kilotons of TNT. The
extremely bright fireball was detected by defense satellites and recorded on
seismic monitoring instruments. The meteor produced twin sonic booms and a
sizzling sound over Alaska and northwestern Canada.

The unexpected visitor ionized the atmosphere as it entered, leaving a
glowing vapor trail that could be seen up to one and a half hours
afterwards. Two bright green flashes were observed. A foul odor could be
detected in the region in the hours following the event.

On June 30, 1908, a huge explosion occurred in the sky above the central
Siberian wilderness near the Tunguska River in Russia. The concussion from
the blast, estimated at 20 megatons of TNT, leveled trees in an area nearly
40 miles in diameter. Oddly, the explosion produced no crater or other
evidence of impact.

Scientists at NASA and the University of Wisconsin conducted a computer
simulation that strongly suggests that the Tunguska culprit was an asteroid,
the most common class of meteorite. The simulation indicated that an
asteroid about 100 feet in diameter and moving at a speed of 10 miles per
second would disintegrate at a height of about five miles above the ground –
approximately the same altitude at which the Tunguska object is believed to
have exploded. Information gleaned from the January 18 meteorite in Canada
might enhance understanding of the Tunguska event.