NASA released Friday photos taken by one of its satellites of the very powerful meteor that appeared over the Bering Sea on December 18, and no direct witness had seen.
In these images taken a few minutes after the disintegration of the big space rock into the atmosphere, we perfectly distinguish the shadow left by the train of the meteor on the clouds below (the shadow is lengthened because of the position of the Sun). We also observe an orange cloud: it is the cloud of particles consumed at very high temperature, and left by the fireball triggered by the explosion.
In these images taken a few minutes after the disintegration of the big space rock into the atmosphere, we perfectly distinguish the shadow left by the train of the meteor on the clouds below (the shadow is lengthened because of the position of the Sun). We also observe an orange cloud: it is the cloud of particles consumed at very high temperature, and left by the fireball triggered by the explosion.
A shooting star
It's the Terra satellite that took the shots. An instrument took a picture at 23:50 GMT. Five of the nine cameras of a second instrument aboard the same satellite took five photos at 23:55 GMT, which NASA collected in an animated gif that shows the spread of the orange cloud of dust.
NASA estimates that the meteor occurred at 23:48 GMT. A meteor is the luminous phenomenon resulting from the entry into the atmosphere of an asteroid or other celestial body. It's a shooting star. If everything does not vaporize in the atmosphere and pieces land, we talk about meteorites.
Deflagration over the waters
It was the most powerful meteor since the Chelyabinsk fireball in Russia in 2013, which had a thousand wounded because of shattered windows. This time, the blast occurred over the waters, hundreds of kilometers off the Russian coast.
The first photo of the phenomenon was taken by the Japanese weather satellite Himawari, and broadcast only this week.
