The Pribram,Lost City,Innisfree, and Neuschwanstein falls: An analysis of the atmospheric trajectories

To date, several meteorites have been found for which their flight in the atmosphere was recorded by special fireball camera networks. Because of this, a thorough analysis of the instrumentally registered falls is of current importance. For such fireballs, not only the high-quality photo images of the motion in the atmosphere exist, but also the density and the shape of the meteor body fragments reached the Earth’s surface are known for sure. In the present study, for the Innisfree, Lost City, and Pribram fireballs, new models of the entry to the atmosphere have been built. The values of the ballistic coefficient and the mass-loss parameter providing the best approximation for the observations of the luminous trajectory segment with the analytical solution of the meteor physics equations have been obtained. From recent results of the numerical experiments on the supersonic airflow of bodies of various shapes, the preatmospheric masses of the fireballs, as well as the dynamic estimates of the mass at the other trajectory points, were obtained. In particular, the terminal mass of the fireballs in the lower segment of the analyzed trajectories is in good agreement with the total mass of the meteorite material recovered in all of the cases considered. Moreover, to calculate the acceleration of the meteor bodies, a new analytical formula has been suggested, which allows the obtained theoretical time dependencies of the velocity and altitude to be compared with the observational data.     

Approximation of the observed motion of bolides by the analytical solution of the equations of meteor physics

A great volume of data has been accumulated thus far related to the photoregistration of the paths of meteor bodies in the terrestrial atmosphere. Most images have been obtained by four bolide networks, which operate in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Spain in different time periods. The approximation of the actual data using theoretical models makes it possible to achieve additional estimates, which do not directly follow from the observations. In the present study, we suggest an algorithm to find such parameters of the theoretical relationship between the height and the velocity of the bolide motion that help to fit observations along the luminous part of the trajectories in the best way. The main difference from previous studies is that the given observations are approximated using the analytical solution of the equations of meteor physics. The model presented in this study was applied to a number of bright meteors observed by the Canadian camera network and by the US Prairie network and to the Benésov bolide, which is one of the largest fireballs registered by the European network. The correct mathematical modeling of meteor events in the atmosphere is necessary for further estimates of the key parameters, including the extra-atmospheric mass, the ablation coefficient, and the effective enthalpy of evaporation of entering bodies. In turn, this information is needed by some applications, namely, those aimed at studying the problems of asteroid and comet security, to develop measures of planetary defense, and to determine the bodies that can reach Earth’s surface.     

On the problem of Solar System origin: The regularities of noble gas fractionation in shock waves

The effects of the last supernova explosion before the formation of the Solar System are considered using noble gases as examples. Acceleration of generated supernova matter in the explosive shock wave led to its initial fractionation and to the formation of small-scale isotopic heterogeneity of primordial matter. This is fixed as some isotopic anomalies in high-temperature phases of the earliest condensates of carbonaceous chondrites, as well as in the isotopic systems of noble gases, and is the basis of the supernova phenomenon. Two main manifestations of shock-wave acceleration in noble gases are investigated: the change in the isotopic ratios of their cosmogenic components due to the increasing hardness of the spectrum of nuclear-active particles and the fractionation of gases, namely, the enrichment of their isotopic systems with heavier isotopes. The reality of the processes under consideration is demonstrated through the example of noble gases of solar corpuscular radiation in lunar ilmenites. The absence of r-process products among extinct radionuclides in Ca-and Al-rich inclusions (CAI) of carbonaceous chondrites with a formation interval of less than or equal to 1 Ma supports the idea that the last supernova was an Ia-type supernova, which possibly played an important role in the origin of the Solar System.     

Determining the age of meteor streams with the retrospective evolution method

We show that the retrospective evolution method yields excessively large inaccuracies in determining the age of meteorid streams. The cause is in its sensitivity to the errors in the initial conditions. The study was fulfilled with the Geminid, Quadrantid, Orionid, Perseid, and Leonid meteor showers as an example.     

Evidence of the complex structure of asteroid 21 Lutetia

We discuss the results of the analysis of three sets of observations of asteroid 21 Lutetia—spectrophotometry, simultaneous BVR photometry, and spectrometry—which show that the asteroid is not a monolithic body. The frequency analysis of the B-V and V-R color indices and the V values, which were obtained from simultaneous BVR measurements in 2004 and calculated from the spectrophotometric observations performed in 2000 (the synthetic values and the color indices), allowed us to demonstrate that the known rotation period of 8.^h172 of the asteroid does not exist at all. At a rather high confidence level, six new periods were found: 2.^h0, 2.^h93, 16.^h8, 1.^d25, 3.^d25, and 60^d. During spectral observations with a 1.25-m telescope at the southern laboratory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Nauchnyi (Crimea) in 2004, the spectra of two components spaced 2.8″ apart were registered. In the short-wavelength spectral range, quick variations of the reflectance of the components were observed. They show the changes in their spectral types from S to C. The analysis of the synthetic values of the color indices determined from the spectrophotometric observations in 2000 confirmed the presence of quick spectral variations. We conclude that asteroid 21 Lutetia is a complex satellite system. This statement is confirmed by the analysis of data published in different sources.     

Aerial bursts in the terrestrial atmosphere

Impacts of cosmic bodies (stony and comet-like) are considered that “burn out” (or, more strictly, totally evaporate) in the atmosphere, which do not form craters but cause fires and destruction on the Earth’s surface. The heights of fragmentation, total evaporation, and deceleration of stony and comet-like meteoroids of different sizes, initial velocities, and impact angles are found from numerical simulations. The possible consequences of such falls are considered. The possible parameters of the Tunguska cosmic body are estimated.     

Drag coefficients for bodies of meteorite-like shapes

The drag coefficients and the patterns of supersonic flows around rectangular parallelepipeds (bodies with rectangular and square faces-bricks and tiles, respectively) were found from numerical experiments. These drag coefficients c _x are considerably different from the values used, in particular, in the meteor-related literature to calculate the motion of brick-shaped meteor bodies. The values of c _x and the flow pattern near the face of the body weakly depend on the relative size of the body within the parameter range considered.     

R?le du brassage et du stockage magmatique dans l’homogénéisation des granito?des calco-alcalins: Cas du pluton composite de Za?r (Maroc central)

Resume.  Le pluton calco-alcalin de Za?r est composé de trois principaux faciès pétrographiques répartis en deux unités granitiques imbriquées. Ces faciès, de différents degrés d’hybridation et de différenciation, résultent de mélanges magmatiques entre des magmas basiques mantelliques de type ?HAB? (basalte hyperalumineux) et un magma anatectique issu de la fusion partielle de matériaux crustaux (métapélites ou métagrauwackes). La répartition des faciès granitiques de Za?r peut s’expliquer selon un modèle pétrogénétique de type ?MASH? (melting-assimilation-storage-homogenization) où des magmas hybrides seraient formés suivant différentes proportions de mélanges magmatiques acide-basique. Ces magmas auraient subides conditions d’ascension spécifiques et seraient mis en place sous forme de 3 grandes injections successives: