The cause of the Scheila meteorite explosion

From left to right: images of asteroids (596) Scheila corresponds to 13, 14, 17 and 29 December 2010. The top row is an observable image, while the bottom row shows models.The tail section clearly shows a cracked pattern that makes the pair progress toward the center.Observations on December 13 and 14 were made from the IAC-80 telescope on Observatorio de Izaña, Tenerife, on the 17th from the 1.23-m glass of the Calar Alto Observatory and the 29th provided by Joseph Brimacombe , using the 0.1-m telescope of the New Mexico Skies Observatory.

On December 12, 2010, astronomers made a remarkable discovery: an asteroid named Scheila changed its shape and appeared a trail of light behind it, which looked like Comets are often seen.

A group of scientists used advanced modeling techniques to prove that the cause of this phenomenon was that another object collided with Scheila, causing material from the asteroid to be pushed out. On Friday, October 7 in Nantes (France), in the joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Conference and the American Astronomical Society, on behalf of the group of pioneering scientists in this study, Fernando Moreno of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada, Spain, presented the latest findings as well as the most accurate calculations of the timing and impact of the phenomenon.

Meteors are rocks around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. In contrast, comets have very flattened elliptical orbits formed when ice, rock and dust gather in cold areas on the outer edge of the solar system, when passing through the sun, elements in stars The broom was scorched by solar radiation and became a glowing tail behind it that looked like a broom sweeping the house (so it was called a comet). Astronomers are always curious and deep in building models to explain this mysterious object.

Willamette Meteorite is the largest meteorite found in the United States.

Moreno's group made a graph of the brightness of the Scheila celestial tail, and found it dimmed for several weeks in a row. They came to the conclusion that this unique tail was made by another object when it collided with Scheila.

Moreno explained: "The model we use involves a huge number of particles fired from Scheila. We have considered the gravitational pull of the sun, the pressure of radiation on the particles being Scheila's gravity, and gravity, factors that have strongly influenced material parts in the vicinity. '

Initially scientists thought that the collision occurred between November 11 and December 3, 2010 , specific figures obtained daily or within 3 days from October 27, 2010. , was presented at the European Planetary Science Conference and American Astronomical Society. In addition, the latest calculations show that the size of collisions has increased significantly from 36m to 60 - 180m in diameter.

Moreno and his team came to the conclusion: " We adopt a law of scaling using the speed of action to indicate the mass of collisions and matter being pushed out. We know the effects. At about 5 km / s, because that is the average speed of asteroids in orbit, using this number, we predict the velocity of ejected particles (50 - 80 m / s) and the scale of the collision . "

This model was created from a close correlation with what is observed through the IAC-80 de Observatorio Izaña telescope, Tenerife, the 1.23 meter telescope of the Calar Alto Observatory, and the telescope 0 , 1-m of New Mexico Observatory Skies within four days.

Scheila itself is much larger than the asteroids within 110 km of it, but it is certainly still strongly impacted when collisions with these asteroids occur.