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WASHINGTON — When a blazing fireball from space exploded over Earth on July 25 , scientists captured the first - ever seismic recording of a meteor impact on ice in Greenland .
At approximately 8 p.m. local time on that day , resident of the townspeople of Qaanaaq on Greenland ’s northwesterly glide reported seeing a shining light in the sky and feeling the ground shake asa meteor ignite overthe nearby Thule Air Base .
Since there aren’t any images of the Greenland fireball, here’s an illustration of a space rock burning up as it enters Earth’s atmosphere.
But the fleeting event was detected by more than just human percipient , according to unpublished research presented Dec. 12 here at the one-year league of the American Geophysical Union ( AGU ) .
Seismographic equipment , which had been establish near Qaanaaq just a few calendar month sooner to monitor how ground agitate affected the ice , also tape the fiery meteor blast . The Qaanaaq human dynamo provide scientists with the first evidence of how an icy surround — and , possibly , a distant Methedrine - cover world — could react to a meteor impact .
The first polarity of the meteoroid was a glorious wink in the sky overGreenland ; the meteor was at its brightest at an altitude of approximately 27 land mile ( 43 kilometers ) above the priming coat , and it was travel at nearly 54,000 miles per hour ( 87,000 km / h ) , grant to the International Meteor Organization ( IMO ) . [ Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever ]
When the meteor exploded over Thule Air Base , the U.S. Air Force ’s northernmost base , it was like a bomb calorimeter going off . With a count on impact energy of 2.1 kiloton of TNT , this blast was the secondly - most - energetic fireball of the year , Live Sciencepreviously reported . A map of the impact web site was shared on Twitter on July 31 by Ron Baalke of theSolar SystemDynamics mathematical group atNASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( and a " distance explorer , " as he describes himself in his Twitter bio ) .
research worker with the Seismometer to Investigate Ice and Ocean Structure ( SIIOS ) at the University of Arizona had installed an raiment of seismometers about 43 miles ( 70 klick ) north of Qaanaaq . Recordings capture by the seismic sensors were interpreted by two Danish Seismological connection broadband stations in Greenland : TULEG ( Station Thule ) and NEEM ( Station Eemian ) . The scientists were then able to name a seismal event that matched the arc of the traveling soil waves and estimate the impact point of the fireball , the researchers report at AGU .
They nail the epicentre of the outcome near Humboldt glacier on theGreenland shabu sheet , and seismic equipment picked up tremors from the encroachment locating as far as 218 international mile ( 350 klick ) away .
But their finding also have implications that expand beyond Earth . This seismic effect was the first - ever memorialize parallel for shock event on ice - cover world — such as frozen Europa , which is a moon orbit Jupiter , and frigidEnceladus , an icy moon of Saturn — and these finding " will inform impact science across object throughout the solar organisation , " the researchers say .
Original clause onLive scientific discipline .
