The Chant Meteor Procession of 1913 – Towards a Descriptive Model

Abstract

From an observational standpoint the Chant Meteor Procession of 9 February, 1913 is particularly remarkable, being especially noted for its long ground track of at least 15,000 km, and for the slow motion and near parallel to the horizon paths adopted by the meteors. The circumstances surrounding the Procession are re-considered here in terms of the successive entry of multiple meteoroid clusters. These clusters are in turn considered to be derived from a temporarily captured Earth orbiting object that has undergone disaggregation. It is suggested that the general observational accounts of the Procession can be explained through the sequential entry of multiple meteoroid clusters that moved through the Earth's atmosphere on grazing-incident trajectories. It is further suggested that the parent object to the Procession, prior to its breakup, may have been no more than 3 to 4-m across.

The Production of Terrestrial Meteorites – Moon Accretion and Lithopanspermia

“…The equations describing meteoroid ablation and deceleration have recently been described in detail by Beech and Comte [12]. In this study the equations are modified so as to follow the motion of ejecta launched from the Earth's surface.…”

“…In this study the equations are modified so as to follow the motion of ejecta launched from the Earth's surface. Accordingly, the equations describing the deceleration due to interactions with the Earth's atmosphere, the mass loss due to ablation, along with the down-range angle to the horizon θ, ground distance X and atmospheric height h are: ρ atmos is the atmospheric density at height h; A is the crosssection area of the projectile (assumed spherical), g is the acceleration due to gravity at height h, R is the Earth's radius, and Λ, ζ and Γ are the heat transfer coefficient, the ablation coefficient and the drag coefficient, respectively -the evaluation of these latter terms is described in Beech and Comte [12].…”

“…This technique enables a straightforward (analytic) determination of the maximum shock pressures that will be experienced by the impactor and the target during an impact event. Following Melosh [1], the velocity of the un-shocked projectile is taken as u i ≡ V imp , and the relationship between the shock velocities U t and U p in the target and projectile are U t = C t + S t u t (12) U p = C p + S p u p (13) where the subscript labels t and p correspond to target and projectile, respectively, and where C t , S t , C p and S p are empirically derived constants set according to the target and projectile materials (see table 5 below). The velocities u t and u p are determined as u t = u i -u p , where u p is the velocity behind the shock front, and u t is the change in the velocity across the shock front propagating into the target substrate.…”

“…The purpose of this paper is to investigate these latter conditions, and to model and follow the path of a reversemeteorite as it moves through Earth's atmosphere. Accordingly, a computer code previously written to investigate the inward passage of a meteorite-producing meteoroid by Beech and Comte [12] has been modified so as to consider the out-ward going ejecta, from a launch location on the Earth's surface, as it moves through the atmosphere and on into cislunar space.…”

The atmospheric fragmentation of the 1908 Tunguska Cosmic Body: reconsidering the possibility of a ground impact

“…Later, Bottke and Melosh (1996a,b) applied the theory to rubble piles and found that Earth tidal forces could easily strip some fragment at each close encounter. The 1913 Chant meteor procession could be one of these case (Beech and Comte, 2018).…”