There are 10 years and thousands of kilometers between the two pictures. But how similar are the Chelyabinsk car and the Columbia shuttle …
Three months ago, on February 15, a bolide flew over Chelyabinsk, leaving a thick white trail and a number of mysteries. First, the track itself, absolutely identical to the reversible (condensation) track of a jet plane or rocket, was more indicative of its man-made origin than of extraterrestrial origin.
Secondly, the brightest ball of fire that flared up behind a flying fireball, which had split in two before it, also received no explanation from the scientists. Third, at the end of the trajectory, large debris should have fallen to the ground, leaving a crater, but this did not happen. Although, in principle, this cannot be with large meteorites.
Since scientists refuse to give substantiated answers to these three questions, society itself is looking for a clue to the phenomenon. Currently, there are three versions of the technogenic origin of the Chelyabinsk celestial phenomenon: unsuccessful rocket tests, emergency entry into the atmosphere of a spacecraft and UFOs.
We will not consider the UFO option, because there is no point in speculating about what cannot be identified, therefore, does not exist as an objective reality. The version of the tests of the hypersonic missile was described in the NG issue of 2013-09-04 ("The secret of the Chelyabinsk meteorite has been revealed?").
No one has conclusively refuted the version, mainly statements were made that this was the author's fantasy. But the author did not claim that this was true. The version is, to a certain extent, a fantasy, but based on the laws of physics and modern advances in technology and technology.
And if the prototype of the Russian hypersonic missile, unlike the American one, is not presented to the general public, this does not mean that it hypothetically cannot exist.
Now we should consider the second version of the technogenic origin of the Chelyabinsk bolide - the accident of the spacecraft. If you like, this is the author's fantasy, but it is based on real events, recorded and confirmed by the most serious scientific and authorized government agencies.
Promotional video:
Chronicle of the disaster
A bright flash and the subsequent shock wave hit Chelyabinsk at about 9 am. And now the original, only greatly reduced timekeeping accurate to the second, compiled by specialists from the American National Space Agency (NASA). Local time. Mach number - in a simplified form is equal to the speed of sound. That is, Mach 20 is at least 6 km / sec.
8:44:09 - Provisional point of entry of the spacecraft into the dense layers of the atmosphere. It is conventionally considered that the entrance occurs when it descends to an altitude of 120 km. Air friction begins to heat the leading edges of the spacecraft. The temperature typically rises gradually to 1400 degrees Celsius over the next 6 minutes.
8:50:53 - The spacecraft enters the ten-minute period during which its hull is exposed to the most severe heat loads. Speed: Mach 24.1 height: 74 km.
8:52:00 - The temperature at this point usually reaches 1450 degrees Celsius.
8:53:26 - Speed: Mach 23; height: 70.6 km. At this point, the temperature begins to exceed 1540 degrees.
8:53:46 - Speed: Mach 22.8; height: 70.2 km. The plasma surrounding the spacecraft suddenly increases its brightness, and a strong electrical discharge occurs in the bright gas plume of the spacecraft. In the next 23 seconds, a similar phenomenon will occur four more times, which will be noted by observers.
08:54:25 - Speed: Mach 22.5; height: 69.3 km. At this moment, observers notice a bright flash.
8:55:00 - Approximately 11 minutes after the spacecraft enters the dense layers of the atmosphere, heating usually reaches 1650 degrees.
8:55:32 - Speed: Mach 21.8; height: 68 km.
8:56:45 - Speed: Mach 20.9; height: 66.8 km.
8:58:20 - Speed: Mach 19.5; height: 64 km.
9:00:18 - Video footage made by ground observers shows that at this moment the object is falling apart.
9:05 am - Residents reported strong explosion sound and shockwave.
The crash occurred at a speed of 20,000 km / h, at an altitude of about 63 km. Local residents observed a white streak left in the sky by a spacecraft. At the same time, it was clear that he fell apart into two parts.
Isn't it a very accurate description of the Chelyabinsk phenomenon? Although in fact the local time is indicated for the East Coast of the United States, and the timing refers to February 1, 2003 and consistently describes the disaster of the shuttle "Columbia". If we compare the videos taken in Chelyabinsk and from the territory of Texas, the coincidence of the tracks in the sky is simply amazing. Especially from the moment when both space objects fall in two. The analogy between them is straightforward.
There is a direct analogue of a flash (explosion) behind the Chelyabinsk object. These are videotapes and official NASA reports on the sinking of another shuttle, Challenger on January 28, 1986. It is believed to have exploded in the 74th second of flight. The ship didn't actually explode. The mistake was due to the fault of the media, which took the first impressions of what happened to the absolute.
The following happened during takeoff of the Challenger. The right-hand solid propellant booster lifted off the giant fuel tank, to which the shuttle was also attached. Inside the tank, a thick partition divided the volume in half. In one half there was liquefied hydrogen, in the other - liquefied oxygen. That is, fuel and oxidizer, without which the fuel will not burn.
The exploded accelerator punches the tank, a huge cloud of hydrogen and oxygen bursts out. Mixing, they form an explosive mixture, which flares up, forming a ball of fire with a diameter of more than a kilometer.
The viewers mistake this flash for an explosion. But the Challenger is still intact and continues to take off at Mach 2. However, it is uncontrollable, it turns sideways, and dynamic overloads lead to destruction. Everything happens in less than a second. The shuttle's tail and wings are ripped off, it falls apart into two parts - the manned compartment with astronauts inside and the engine compartment. From a height of 13.8 km, they fall into the sea and break on the water surface.
Slow-motion viewing of the Chelyabinsk videos shows how the reverse trail of a flying object suddenly swells up with a huge white cloud, and then it flares up with bright red fire. Everything happens exactly as in the Challenger crash. At the same time, the object, which fell in two, continues its flight in the same direction towards the cities of Zlatoust and Miass.
No traces left
Now it's time to ask a question about the fallen debris and the resulting crater. After the disaster of "Columbia" in the territory of several states were collected 84 thousand wreckage and small particles of the ship. They lay in a strip 150 km long and 16 to 35 km wide. However, the estimated landing weight of the Columbia is 84.4 tons. And, for example, the mass of the automatic cargo vehicle "Progress-M-12M", which suffered an accident at launch on August 24, 2011, is only 7 tons.
When, due to malfunctions of the Progress-M-12M with the third stage of the Proton launch vehicle, they did not enter the calculated orbit, it was immediately announced that their debris fell in the Altai Territory. Victims immediately appeared demanding monetary compensation, and local authorities announced an environmental disaster. However, after three weeks of intensive prospecting, far from the supposed site of the fall of the debris in Gorny Altai, only a flap of thin aluminum was found with inscriptions indicating that it was food packaging. The surviving batch number made it possible to establish that these were the remnants of the cargo of the same Progress-M-12M. At this point, the search was stopped due to its complete uselessness.
The conclusion suggests itself: a spacecraft weighing less than 10 tons, entering the Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled mode, can burn out without a trace. No falling debris, no impact craters will happen. As it happened with the Chelyabinsk object. He, having broken, flew away towards the South Urals to the cities of Miass and Zlatoust, but there he was not seen, heard and looked in vain. They were looking, by the way, not only for numerous ground groups, but also for helicopters. Three - from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and as many as five - from the FSB, obviously, quickly deployed from the border with Kazakhstan. The next day it was announced that no meteorite debris had been found, and FSB helicopters no longer flashed in the sky.
It is doubtful that the state security service was so concerned about some stones from the sky. But if the Chelyabinsk object had a technogenic origin, it is the direct responsibility of the FSB to investigate this circumstance. And then you never know what will fly to Russia with an incomprehensible purpose. It is possible that the FSB officers were initially focused on searching for the remains of the spacecraft and successfully completed their mission without unnecessary information noise. In that case, honor and praise them!
In search of the nonexistent
On March 21, at a seminar at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Dmitry Badyukov, Deputy Head of the Meteorics Laboratory of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GEOKHI), said that, according to the calculations of the laboratory staff, the mass of the largest fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which has not yet been found, could be up to 10 tons, and the size is several meters.
However, using the example of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite, one can see that a debris weighing a ton and a half leaves a crater 20 meters in diameter and several meters deep. The Southern Urals are not at all such a remote place, where no one would hear the thunder of a blow and would not see a column of whipping up dust and steam in broad daylight. And observers would not have missed such a fresh crater against a snowy background from helicopters.
Instead of a real meteorite crater, local authorities and representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations proposed a round ice-hole on Lake Chebarkul. This ice hole is located 80 km away from the precisely established flight path of the Chelyabinsk object. It is noteworthy that it is located just above the wintering pit, where fish accumulate for the winter. Judging by the remnants of silt and algae along the edges of the hole, someone managed to use a net at the bottom there.
Scientists from Yekaterinburg picked up a dozen grains of sand less than a millimeter in size on the ice of Chebarkul. After a little research, they announced that it was a meteorite shard - ordinary chondrite, from the word "chondrue." Chondrules are called round formations inside a stone, characteristic only of very ancient rocks with an age of 4.5 billion years.
This is the time of the formation of the solar system, including the Earth. There are no such rocks in the upper layers of the Earth. Chondrules are microscopic, then it is difficult to vouch for their extraterrestrial origin. But more often they are larger than these very grains of sand, are visible to the naked eye, and then the meteorite origin of the substance is beyond doubt. Unfortunately, scientists have not yet bothered to upload high-quality images of meteorite slices with clearly visible chondrules and corresponding comments on the Internet.
Much more similar to meteorites turned out to be small stone fragments, immediately called "peas" for their small size. The only thing that confuses is the cracks in them. It is believed that there can be no voids or cracks in meteorites; they are torn apart along these cracks in flight. Another oddity: all the "peas" fell out only in a few places, rather small spots, extremely well timed to the road and a clearing near two neighboring villages - Emanzhelinskoye and Deputatsky.
Collision
The fragments fell out in the middle of the trajectory of the celestial object, but none of them reached the final point of the flight. This contradiction, like a number of others, is removed by only one assumption - there were two space objects. The first is an unknown spacecraft weighing several tons, the second is a stone meteorite weighing several tens of kilograms. And this meteorite knocked the spaceship out of orbit, pushed it into the earth's atmosphere.
The collision took place in space. A meteorite moving in the same direction caught up with the spacecraft, crashed into it, and then they flew together, gradually decreasing. In the earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft began to disintegrate and finally broke apart. Two large debris continued their horizontal flight in the same direction, quickly burning up in the atmosphere. And the meteorite, which collapsed to small fragments, continued to move along its trajectory to the Earth, falling out as spots of "peas" in the area of the villages of Emanzhelinskoye and Deputatsky.
This version fully answers all uncomfortable questions and removes all contradictions. Including the main thing: the technogenic trail of a meteoroid in the sky and the fallout of space chondrites in the middle of its trajectory. As for the round ice hole on the ice of Lake Chebarkul, let's leave it to the discretion of the local authorities, who probably also want to attract more tourists. However, the ice on the lake will soon melt completely, and not just off the coast …
The question is quite natural: what kind of spacecraft was hit by a meteorite over the Urals? It is difficult to answer specifically. More than five thousand non-working satellites revolve around the Earth. Let's add to them the booster blocks and stages of carrier rockets, the number of which is probably in the hundreds. Some gradually go out of orbit and burn up, but new ones are added to them that have exhausted their resource. They are already so close that they periodically collide with each other. Among these satellites there are a considerable number of heavy ones, weighing several tons. Some have been circling the Earth for 20-30 years, or even more.
This space debris is being monitored. However, Russia is seriously inferior to the United States in this respect. After the complete loss of the entire space fleet - more than 20 ships that watched the sky around the clock from different points of the World Ocean, Roskosmos can only observe its own spacecraft only from the territory of Russia. The Aerospace Defense Forces of the Russian Federation have their own surveillance system, but they never share information. Perhaps the US military and NASA, who are observing space more closely, could shed light on this question. But they also prefer not to disclose such information, so as not to reveal their capabilities.
But sometimes Americans demonstrate their capabilities. For example, when Roskosmos experts boldly report that the spacecraft has not entered the calculated orbit, but the connection is being established. Here the Americans claim that the apparatus has already joined the "Pacific" group. And they are right.
The chances of an accidental meteorite hitting one in five thousand dead satellites are very high, as well as several hundred working ones. For almost 60 years of human exploration of outer space, such incidents have happened, just not so large-scale. Most recently, on April 30, a small meteorite struck the solar panel of the International Space Station. "It's a good thing he didn't get into the corpus," tweeted Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who posted a photo of a perforated battery there.
Inconvenient version
The version of the collision of a spacecraft and a meteorite logically puts everything in its place, satisfying both supporters of the technogenic nature of the Chelyabinsk phenomenon, and the scientific community, which enthusiastically studied black peas of extraterrestrial origin. Although scientists will probably be offended that large fragments will never be found.
The lobbyists of the system for protecting the Earth from space hazards worth tens of billions of rubles will be much more disappointed. The whole world, primarily the USA, was invited as partners. But the United States, where only two telescopes are quite successful in tracking all potentially dangerous celestial bodies, considered the additional cost of contemplating the sky unnecessary.
It is clear that domestic lobbyists of the protection system will not calm down in the fight for budget money, and for them the Chelyabinsk phenomenon of knocking out window frames is a strong argument. If we accept the version about the collision of a small meteorite with a large artificial satellite, the argument disappears. And it turns out that it is necessary to save the Earth from space debris. And then the lobbyists of the Roscosmos enterprises will come to life.
The local Chelyabinsk authorities will not like this version either. On February 15, three hours after the air wave, they announced the amount of damage - 1 billion rubles, but after a month and a half, they managed to document and "estimate" only 490 million rubles. The real costs of compensation to citizens and repairs are unknown.
On the other hand, the dream of attracting millions of tourists is gaining extra breath. It will also appeal to local residents who have gained kilograms of "peas" of cosmic origin, as well as tons of slags and stones.
I would like to hear the arguments of those who disagree with the presented version. Naturally, with answers to the three questions asked at the beginning of the article. Because an objection like “it's just a fantasy” only demonstrates scientific impotence.
However, scientists, probably, are busy with knocking out funds for summer expeditions to search for large fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. They can be understood. Tens of thousands of Urals people rest in the summer on the lakes of the Southern Urals: the sun, like in Crimea, clear water, like in Lake Baikal, only warm, clean taiga air, fishing, berries, mushrooms. Now there are also meteorites. Paradise, true paradise! If not for the mosquitoes …