Origin of Chelyabinsk meteorite remains unknown
The uncertainty of science: The origin of the Chelyabinsk meteorite that crashed over that Russian city two years ago remains murky to scientists.
Originally, astronomers thought that the Chelyabinsk meteor came from a 1.24-mile-wide (2 kilometers) near-Earth asteroid called 1999 NC43. But a closer look at the asteroid’s orbit and likely mineral composition, gained from spectroscopy, suggests few similarities between it and the Russian meteor.
The scientists noted in their paper that you really can’t use the similarity of orbits to link different asteroids, as their orbits are chaotic and change too much.
The uncertainty of science: The origin of the Chelyabinsk meteorite that crashed over that Russian city two years ago remains murky to scientists.
Originally, astronomers thought that the Chelyabinsk meteor came from a 1.24-mile-wide (2 kilometers) near-Earth asteroid called 1999 NC43. But a closer look at the asteroid’s orbit and likely mineral composition, gained from spectroscopy, suggests few similarities between it and the Russian meteor.
The scientists noted in their paper that you really can’t use the similarity of orbits to link different asteroids, as their orbits are chaotic and change too much.