ИСТИНА

On February 15, 2013, at 9:22 am, an exceptionally bright and long duration fireball was observed by many eyewitnesses in the Chelyabinsk region, Russia. A strong shock wave associated with the fireball caused significant damage such as destroyed windows and parts of buildings in Chelyabinsk and the surrounding territories. A number of video records of the event are available and have been used to reconstruct atmospheric trajectory, velocity, deceleration rate, and parent asteroid Apollo-type orbit in the Solar System. Two types of meteorite material are present among recovered fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. These are described as the light-colored and dark-colored lithology. Both types are of LL5 composition with the dark-colored one being an impact-melt shocked to a higher level. Based on the magnetic susceptibility measurements, the Chelyabinsk meteorite is richer in metallic iron as compared to other LL chondrites. The measured bulk and grain densities and the porosity closely resemble other LL chondrites. Shock darkening does not have a significant effect on the material physical properties, but causes a decrease of reflectance and decrease in silicate absorption bands in the reflectance spectra. This is similar to the space weathering effects observed on asteroids. However, no spectral slope change similar to space weathering is observed as a result of shock-darkening. Thus, it is possible that some dark asteroids with invisible silicate absorption bands may be composed of relatively fresh shock darkened chondritic material.