February 13, 2023. It was 4:59 in the morning when a violent explosion illuminated the skies of Normandynorth of France. It was not a ray, nor a missile. It was the end of a travel of millions of kilometers for a small asteroid called 2023 Cx1.
Seven hours of notice. The 650 -kilogram rock had just a meter in diameter, so it had been detected only seven hours before impact. But the most disturbing thing was not his surprise arrival, but his behavior when entering the earth’s atmosphere.
An exhaustive analysis published two and a half years later in Nature Astronomy He has revealed that, if the asteroid had been larger, the consequences of his extraordinary explosion could have been devastating.
A high -risk meteor. Most meteorites are fragmenting as they descend through the atmosphere, but 2023 CX1 endured intact until it reached a distance to the ground of only 28 kilometers. At that point, the pressure made it explode like a pump.
After traveling through space for about 30 million years, the asteroid released 98% of all its kinetic energy in a second fraction. And in a very concentrated region of the atmosphere, when it reached a dynamic pressure of 4 megapascal.
It does not compare with Cheliábinsk. The 2023 CX1 behavior was radically different from that of the car whose explosion of 500 kilotons He broke windows and caused hundreds of injured in Russia in 2013. The one in France generated a spherical shock wave instead of cylindrical, concentrating much more energy and greatly increasing the area of soil affected by overpressure.
According to researchers, this type of abrupt fragmentation could cause much more damage than the progressive fragmentations of similar size bodies. The French were lucky that it was so small.
More firewood for planetary defense. The analysis was based on an unprecedented number of observations after mobilizing the scientific and citizen community in those seven hours of margin. The prediction of the fall by ESA and NASA had a margin of error of less than 20 meters between the planned and observed trajectory, which in turn facilitated the recovery of more than one hundred fragments of the meteorite in the commune of Saint-Pierre-Le Viger.
According to the CSICwhich participated in the investigation, this event confirms the existence of a new population of asteroids, type L chondrites, capable of these violent explosions. “These asteroids must be taken into account in the Planetary Defense Strategiessince they represent a higher risk for populated areas, “says Auriane Egal, first author of the study.
With what we know today, perhaps the authorities activate evacuation plans the next time an asteroid of this type threatens us. Provided that detection systems do not fail, and detect the threat in time.
Image | THAT
In Xataka | Tunguska: the explosion of 12 megatones that reminds us that space is full of wonders, but also of horrors
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings