Aerosol plume after the Chelyabinsk bolide

In this work, the bolide is studied as an atmospheric event causing significant release of meteoritic dust into the stratosphere. Ground-based pictures taken by eyewitnesses and images from the Japan geostationary satellite MTSAT-2 are used as a database. The analysis of the ground-based pictures allows the altitude of the main burst to be estimated as 22.9 ± 1.6 km. It is shown that the top of the cloud formed due to the main burst rose to 11 km for about 60–80 s due to convection, which provides an estimate of the maximum vertical velocity of 130–180 m/s. According to calculations, the upper part of the trail is affected by a strong wind drift and is located at an altitude of >53 km, in the mesosphere. The MTSAT-2 data show that the mesospheric part of the trail traveled southwestward, while the stratospheric part, northeastward, with velocities higher than 100 km/h.