On the possibility of through passage of asteroid bodies across the Earth’s atmosphere

Abstract

We have studied the conditions of through passage of asteroids with diameters 200, 100, and 50 m, consisting of three types of materials – iron, stone, and water ice, across the Earth’s atmosphere with a minimum trajectory altitude in the range 10–15 km. The conditions of this passage with a subsequent exit into outer space with the preservation of a substantial fraction of the initial mass have been found. The results obtained support our idea explaining one of the long-standing problems of astronomy – the Tunguska phenomenon, which has not received reasonable and comprehensive interpretations to date. We argue that the Tunguska event was caused by an iron asteroid body, which passed through the Earth’s atmosphere and continued to the near-solar orbit.

Effect of the surface shape of a large space body on its fragmentation in a planetary atmosphere

“…As we have calculated in our work, the radius of this iron asteroid body could have been from 50 to 100 m to avoid disintegration in the atmosphere and to preserve significant part of the initial mass. The most important conclusion of this work is that we have confirmed the realism of the hypothesis that the Tunguska phenomenon can be likely associated with a grazing passage of an iron asteroid body across the Earth's atmosphere with velocities below the fragmentation threshold -20 km/s at the minimum altitude of 10-15 km and its subsequent escape into outer space to the orbit around the Sun (Khrennikov et al 2016(Khrennikov et al , 2020.…”

“…The structures of aerodynamic fluxes around a spherical SB as well as around a spherical SB with wedge-shaped notch with formation of vortex structures and stagnation zones in its rear and front parts are shown in our paper (Khrennikov et al 2020) and in Fig. 2.…”

“…Note that this work is a continuation of our recent paper Khrennikov et al ( 2020), which discusses the possibility of through pas- sage of an iron SB across the Earth's atmosphere with preservation of a significant fraction of the initial mass. The dominant mechanism of the mass loss at high velocity in the atmosphere is the high-temperature sublimation of the SB material (Khrennikov et al 2020). The aim of this work is to estimate the probability of fragmentation of an iron SB during its through passage of the atmosphere with an initial velocity over 15 km/s as an additional mechanism of a mass loss.…”

“…One of the important problems in the modern astronomy is forecasting the collision of the Earth with asteroids, capable of causing extensive damage to the planet. In this context the study of the passage of large space bodies (SB) through the planetary atmosphere is of great interest (Stulov et al 1995;Bronshten 1983;Martin 1966;Loh 1963;Hawkins 1964;Adushkin & Nemchinov 1994;Morrison et al 1994;Cotto-Figueroa et al 2016;Khrennikov et al 2020). Such processes are accompanied by the fragmentation of space bodies, which reduces the degree of damage to terrestrial objects due to the fall onto the planet surface of individual fragments with significantly less mass and kinetic energy.…”

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“…Recently, Khrenikov et al suggested that it resulted from the passage of an iron asteroid across the Earth's atmosphere. The latter would have hit the upper atmosphere at about 10-15 km and then escaped to the interplanetary space (Khrennikov et al 2020).…”