Ionospheric disturbances in the vicinity of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid explosive disruption as inferred from dense GPS observations

Abstract

The paper describes results of studying effects of total electron content (TEC) variations triggered by the Chelyabinsk meteoroid airburst as inferred from unique data of a dense GPS network located around the final part of the meteoroid atmospheric path. Well‐pronounced TEC disturbances with an average period of about 10 min and amplitude of 0.07–0.5 TECU (total electron content unit, 1 TECU = 1016 el m−2) were detected. These disturbances were initiated by an ionospheric source activated about 5–6 min after the airburst. The disturbance velocity damping with time and distance from the airburst was revealed using a GPS interferometric technique. Several modes of TEC disturbances with propagation velocities ranging from 250 to 660 m/s were distinguished through the distance‐time diagram analysis. The estimated position of ionospheric source of TEC disturbances is shifted 36 km southwestward from the airburst, which is most likely to be associated with the conjoint influence of TEC data errors, damping and anisotropy of TID propagation velocity.

Toward the azimuthal characteristics of ionospheric and seismic effects of “Chelyabinsk” meteorite fall according to the data from coherent radar, GPS, and seismic networks

“…The average velocity was estimated from movement of front lines: V = 661 ± 256 m/s. This value corresponds to the high‐velocity TEC disturbances which were distinguished through the distance‐time diagrams and were observed the first as presented in Perevalova et al []. Our result is generally consistent with the velocity (862 ± 65 m/s) estimated by Yang et al [] within 300 km of the meteorite impact with the ground.…”

“…The first TEC disturbances were registered ≈6 min after the meteorite explosion at distances of 80–100 km from the air burst location. Over a period 03:26–03:33 UT, the TEC disturbances are characterized by fast dynamics in accordance with Perevalova et al [] results. But in Perevalova et al [], we cannot draw a conclusion about the nature of these TIDs due to the limited amount of observation data.…”

“…Thus, the analysis of large quantity of experimental data confirmed the results for interval 03:34–04:05 UT presented earlier in Berngardt et al [] and Perevalova et al []. Velocity 337 m/s agrees well with the average velocity (334 m/s) of TID wavefront for this time interval [ Perevalova et al , ]. Obtained velocity (337 m/s) and period (10 min) of TEC disturbances are also in agreement with respective data (362 m/s, 7–17 min) observed at distances of 300–1500 km from Chelyabinsk in Yang et al [].…”

“…Our previous results on meteorite‐generated GPS‐TEC disturbances are presented in Berngardt et al [] and Perevalova et al [].…”

“…Traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) generated by the "Chelyabinsk" meteorite were detected by various instruments: ionosondes and low-orbit satellites tomography Givishvili et al, 2013], coherent decameter EKB radar [Berngardt et al, 2013a], and GPS [Gokhberg et al, 2013;Berngardt et al, 2013a;Yang et al, 2014;Ruzhin et al, 2014;Chernogor, 2015;Perevalova et al, 2015;Tertyshnikov et al, 2013].…”