On February 15, 2023, a meteorite broke out over Texas and scared the locals a lot. The detonation force was 8 tons of TNT equivalent. Researchers have already discovered the first of the wreckage of this body.
Explosion over Texas
Researchers are studying a body that exploded over Texas on February 15, 2023. They claimed to have discovered the first fragment of a meteorite. The space rock entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the southern United States in the afternoon of this day.
The pilots of two planes were the first to report the meteorite. At the same time, numerous observers on the ground reported a rumble in the sky. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 34 km above the Earth’s surface and was strong enough to scare a bunch of people on the surface. According to experts, its capacity was equivalent to 8 tons of TNT.
After analyzing the explosion and the trajectory of the meteorite, scientists were able to estimate its parameters. They found that the diameter of the body was 60 cm, and its mass reached 450 kg. It entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 43.5 km/s.
Meteorite Fragment
The uniqueness of this event added that it was the third major meteorite to collide with Earth within three days. Before that, on February 13, a body with a diameter of about 1 meter exploded over England and France. And on February 14, a fireball was seen over Italy.
In general, space rocks fly into the Earth’s atmosphere almost every minute, but most of them have a diameter from a grain of sand to a tiny stone and do not reach the surface. It was not surprising that the explosion of a large body attracted the attention of all the “meteorite hunters” and already on February 18 they found the first fragment of the “Texas meteorite”.
The first fragment of a meteorite was found by a planetary explorer and “space rock hunter” Robert Ward. It happened near the settlement of El Sauz. The search for other fragments of this body continues.
According to www.space.com
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