Russian Meteorite Originated in Apollo Asteroids

A pair of astronomers has found the origins of the meteorite that blazed through the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia recently and injured over 1,000 people before crashing into Lake Chebarkul. A Colombian research team believes the meteor came from the Apollo cluster of asteroids, BBC News reported.

On Feb. 15, a 10-ton meteorite tore through the airspace near the Ural Mountains in Russia with terrifying power. The shock wave from the Chelyabinsk meteorite injured more than 1,200 people as the object fragmented above the city of Chelyabinsk, the Washington Post reported. Estimated at about 55-feet, it was the largest meteorite to smash into the Earth since the infamous 1908 "Tunguskaya event" that leveled an 800-square-mile area in rural Sibera. 

The shock wave resulting from the meteorite crash was the size of 30 Hiroshima A-bombs, and shattered windows and imploded roofs throughout the region, sending 34 adults and 12 children to the hospital for treatment, with two in intensive care, Russia's Ministry of Emergencies said, according to Sky News. No one was killed in the blast, and none of the injuries sustained were considered critical, as the majority were cuts from broken glass or concussions, according to the Post.

The bizarre, frightening incident was captured in surprising detail by locals throughout the region with camera phones, CCTV, and thanks a popular new Russian trend of dashboard-mounted cameras in cars, according to The Huffington Post. Thanks to the wealth of amateur footage, and time stamps and dates on the videos, the team of astronomers was able calculate with "simple trigonometry" the direction in the sky the meteorite came from, as well as its orbit around the Sun by referencing that information against the location of the object's impact. 

Here's how the researchers, Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin, from the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, describe their methodology:

"In order to account for the uncertainties implicit in the determination of the trajectory of the body in the atmosphere, we use Monte Carlo methods to calculate the most probable orbital parameters," they explain, according to The Huffington Post.

The continue: "We use this result to classify the meteoroid among the near Earth asteroid families finding that the parent body belonged to the Apollo asteroids. Although semimajor axis and inclination of the preliminary orbit computed by us are uncertain, the rest of orbital elements are well constrained in this preliminary reconstruction."

Using that "simple" process, Zuluada and Ferrin determined the meteorite originated in the group of near-Earth asteroids known as the Apollo cluster. One of the largest bodies of near-Earth asteroids ever discovered, asteroids from the Apollo group regularly cross into Earth's orbit. About 5,200 of the 9,700 near-Earth asteroids we've found have originated in the Apollo family. 

Other scientists seem to agree with Zuluada and Ferrin's findings.

"It certainly looks like it was a member of the Apollo class of asteroids," Dr Stephen Lowry, from the University of Kent, told BBC News.

"Its elliptical, low inclination orbit, indicates a solar system origin, most likely from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Perhaps with more data, we can determine roughly where in the asteroid belt it come from."

In Chelyabinsk "more than 297 [apartment] houses, 12 schools, several social-service facilities and a number of industrial enterprises were damaged," said President Vladimir Putin in a statement.

The meteorite burst into "several dozen large pieces" as it shot across the sky, said emergency situations minister Vladimir Puchkov, the Post reported.