[meteorite-list] FWD: News on the Vitim bolide

From: Robert Verish <bolidechaser_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:21:08 2004
Message-ID: <20030726214803.69881.qmail_at_web80502.mail.yahoo.com>

------------- Forward Message ----------------
meteorobs-digest Saturday, July 26 2003
Volume 04 : Number 1192

(meteorobs) News on the Vitim bolide
(meteorobs) The Vitim bolide in English
(meteorobs) On the Vitim bolide in English
(meteorobs) A small addition

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 17:43:16 +0400
From: "Andrei Ol'khovatov" <olkhov_at_mail.ru>
Subject: (meteorobs) News on the Vitim bolide

Dear All,

Here are some news regarding the September 24/25, 2002
Vitim bolide in Russia.
It is in Russian from a press-conference which I
attended:
http://www.rian.ru/rian/intro.cfm?nws_id=411872
(some pictures from an expedition to the "Vitim
bolide" can be seen here:
http://www.neplaneta.ru/press_konf_aif.shtml )
I think that soon the news will appear in English.
Those who wants to read them right now could read my
impressions of the press-conference at my www-page:

http://olkhov.narod.ru/news1999.htm

Best wishes,
Andrei Ol'khovatov
Russia, Moscow

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 09:13:31 +0400
From: "Andrei" <fromme_at_newmail.ru>
Subject: (meteorobs) The Vitim bolide in English

Dear All,

The news info on the Vitim bolide in English have
appeared! The first one is from France-Press:
============
MOSCOW, July 25 (AFP) - A giant meteorite that struck
the Irkutsk region of Siberia last September had the
force of a nuclear bomb of medium power and devastated
a huge area of taiga, Russian scientists reported
Friday.
   A 10-strong expedition of scientists and doctors
was unable to identify and reach the place where the
meteorite landed until mid-May. It was finally located
in the very remote, wooded semi-mountainous region of
Bodaibo, northeast of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal.
   "Over an area of 100 square kilometres (40 square
miles) trees were smashed in a pattern characteristic
of very powerful blast effects," expedition leader
Vadim Chernobrov told a news conference.
   He said that the meteorite had disintegrated before
hitting the ground and had left about 20 craters, up
to 20 metres (nearly 70 feet) in diameter, with an
explosion "equivalent to the power of an atomic bomb
of medium size".
   A video made by the expedition and shown to
reporters showed shattered and sometimes burnt tree
stumps, charred by the high temperatures released by
the explosion.
   Meteorites are large rocks which tumble through
space and then get caught in the Earth's gravity,
becoming red-hot with the heat of the atmosphere.
   Unlike meteors, which burn up completely as they
fall and are occasionally visible in the night sky as
shooting stars, meteorites are rocks which are so big
they make it all the way to the ground.
   The brighest such phenomenon ever recorded during
human history also happened over Siberia. In 1908 a
meteorite hit the Tunguska region, devastating the
forest over an area of some 2,000 square kilometers
(770 square miles).
   Many scientists also believe that in prehistoric
times a massive meteorite that hit what is now Central
America may have caused the disappearance of the
dinosaurs.
=========
And much more detailed article from RIA-NOVOSTI:
=========
<http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=3345630&startrow=1&date=2003-07-25&do_alert=0>

VITIM METEORITE WAS PROBABLY A COMET
Russian Information Agency Novosti
July 25, 2003

MOSCOW - Russian scientists who have investigated the
place where the so-called Vitim meteorite fell presume
that what hit the taiga was a small comet.
The object concerned was a large celestial body with a
supposed weight of about 100 tons, which at the end of
September of last year fell into the basin of the
Vitim River in Eastern Siberia. Witnesses claim that
they saw a glowing object hurtle through the air and
break up into small pieces and then heard a powerful
explosion. A fire started in the place of the fall,
within a radius of 3 kilometres. Because these
localities are hard to reach, the investigators did
not arrive there until this summer.
Members of the Russian expedition said they failed to
discover metal remnants in the place of the fall.
Besides, the character of damage and the radiation
background at the explosion epicentre are
substantially different from the aftereffects of the
fall of a meteorite, believe the scientists.
The meteorite version is also disproved by the fact
that edges of meteorites are usually fused,
and fragments of the celestial body have a dense
metallic structure.
The fragments found by the scientists resemble
sandstone and "crumble in hands", one of the
expedition participants Vadim Chernobrov, head of the
Kosmopoisk research association, told RIA Novosti.
According to him, some data, however, fail to confirm
the comet theory.
"The local water was found to contain tritium, a
special kind of radioactive hydrogen, and that is
rather strange for comets," thinks Chernobrov.
Although near midnight on September 24, 2002, the
flying object above Eastern Siberia was registered,
according to the US Defence Department, by an American
military satellite, members of the Russian expedition
do not rule out that they deal with a rare natural
phenomenon - a giant ball lightning or an ejection of
special subterranean minerals that disintegrate into
water and gas.
Final conclusions will be made later.
The investigations on the site of the blast are
continuing.
As estimated by specialists, it was an explosion of
such a force that if the supposed fire-ball had fallen
on Moscow, half of the Russian capital would have
turned into desert, and the other half into ruins.
===========

Best wishes,
Andrei Ol'khovatov
Moscow, Russia


------------------------------

Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 10:13:46 +0400
From: "Andrei Ol'khovatov" <olkhov_at_mail.ru>
Subject: (meteorobs) A small addition

Dear All,

First - please, excuse me for posting a duplicate
message by a mistake.
Second - please, pay attention that most of the data
on the Vitim event is so sparsely, that it is too
early for any solid conclusion. And those who have
access to commercial satellite pictures of the region
could help in research - just look for images of the
forest fall, and determine, when (on the pictures) did
it appear. I would be glad to cooperate.

Best wishes,
Andrei Ol'khovatov
Russia, Moscow

------------------------------

End of meteorobs-digest V4 #1192
********************************


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Received on Sat 26 Jul 2003 05:48:03 PM PDT