![Irkutsk oblast with Vitim bolide impact site](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Irkutsk_oblast_with_Vitim_bolide_impact_site.png)
The 2002 Vitim event or Bodaybo event is believed to be an
impact
Impact may refer to:
* Impact (mechanics), a high force or shock (mechanics) over a short time period
* Impact, Texas, a town in Taylor County, Texas, US
Science and technology
* Impact crater, a meteor crater caused by an impact event
* Impact ...
by a
bolide
A bolide is normally taken to mean an exceptionally bright meteor, but the term is subject to more than one definition, according to context. It may refer to any large crater-forming body, or to one that explodes in the atmosphere. It can be a ...
(fireball) in the
Vitim River
The Vitim (russian: Витим; evn, Витым, ; sah, Виитим, ; Buryat and mn, Витим, ''Vitim'') is a major tributary of the Lena. Its source is east of Lake Baikal, at the confluence of rivers Vitimkan from the west and China fr ...
basin. It occurred near the town of
Bodaybo
Bodaybo ( rus, Бодайбо, p=bədɐjˈbo) is a town and the administrative center of Bodaybinsky District in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. It is located from Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblast.
Geography
The town is located in the ...
in the Mamsko-Chuisky district of
Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast (russian: Ирку́тская о́бласть, Irkutskaya oblast; bua, Эрхүү можо, Erkhüü mojo) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara, Lena, and Nizh ...
,
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
on September 25, 2002 at approximately 22:00 (local time, UTC/GMT +9 hours:
ISO 8601
ISO 8601 is an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of date and time-related data. It is maintained by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was first published in 1988, wi ...
format 2002-09-25T13:00Z). The event was detected by a US military missile-defense satellite.
[
]
Analysis
Attempts were made to define the magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
of the explosion. U.S. military
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...
analysts calculated it was around .[ Peter Brown estimates the total yield of both Bodiabo and ]Tagish Lake
Tagish Lake is a lake in Yukon and northern British Columbia, Canada. The lake is more than long and about wide.
It has two arms, the Taku Arm in the east which is very long and mostly in British Columbia and Windy Arm in the west, mostly in ...
at about 2 kilotons—a factor of roughly 10,000 less than the Tunguska event
The Tunguska event (occasionally also called the Tunguska incident) was an approximately 12-megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of June 30, ...
.[ Russian physicist Andrey Olkhovatov estimates it at 4–5 kilotons.
Information about the event appeared in the mass media and among scientists after only a week. A small expedition, sent by the Institute of Sun–Earth Physics (]Irkutsk
Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is ...
), tried to find a meteorite within about 10 km from Bodaybo town (people told them– "it has fallen beyond the nearest mountain").
Expeditions
* 1st — Russian EMERCOM
The Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergency Situations and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters (russian: Министерство Российской Федерации по делам гражданской ...
team attempted to find fragments of the meteorite near Bodaybo.
* 2nd — October, 2002 expedition of Irkutsk State University
Irkutsk State University (russian: Ирку́тский госуда́рственный университе́т) was founded in October 1918 in Irkutsk, Siberia. Nowadays Irkutsk State University is a large scientific and educational instituti ...
(leader S. Yazev).
Official expeditions in 2002–2003 never reached the impact site, situated in remote Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
n taiga
Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruce ...
.
Kosmopoisk expedition
As reported by the ufology
Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and f ...
organization Kosmopoisk
Kosmopoisk (russian: «Космопо́иск», full name: Общеросси́йская нау́чно-иссле́довательская обще́ственная организа́ция, ОНИОО, translated "All-Russian Research Publ ...
, in May 2003 an expedition, performed by Kosmopoisk (leader — Vadim Chernobrov
Vadim Alexandrovich Chernobrov (russian: Вади́м Алекса́ндрович Чернобро́в (1965, Volgograd Oblast – 18 May 2017, Moscow) was the founder and leader of the Kosmopoisk organisation. He was a ufology and mystery enthusi ...
) reached a presumed impact point (about 50 km from Vitimsky settle point). The situation there looked similar to that of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River
The Podkamennaya Tunguska (russian: Подкаменная Тунгуска, literally ''Tunguska under the stones''; evn, Дулгу Катэнӈа, Ket: Ӄо’ль) also known as ''Middle Tunguska'' or ''Stony Tunguska'', is a river in Krasno ...
after the Tunguska event
The Tunguska event (occasionally also called the Tunguska incident) was an approximately 12-megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of June 30, ...
in 1908. Snow and water samples were analyzed and found to contain an abnormal amount of tritium
Tritium ( or , ) or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life about 12 years. The nucleus of tritium (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus o ...
, as well as radioactive
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
isotope
Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numbers) ...
s of cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...
and caesium
Caesium (IUPAC spelling) (or cesium in American English) is a chemical element with the symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal with a melting point of , which makes it one of only five elemental metals that a ...
. Chernobrov suggested that the Vitim event could be caused by a low density comet
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...
nucleus with a diameter of about 30–100 meters.
See also
* List of meteor air bursts
A meteor air burst is a type of air burst in which a meteor explodes after entering a planetary body's atmosphere. This fate leads them to be called fireballs or bolides, with the brightest air bursts known as superbolides. Such meteoroids wer ...
* Eastern Mediterranean event
The 2002 Eastern Mediterranean Event was a high-energy upper atmosphere explosion over the Mediterranean Sea, around 34°N 21°E (between Libya and Crete) on June 6, 2002. This explosion, similar in power to a small atomic bomb, has been relat ...
References
External links
The Vitim bolide
at Meteorites Australia (Meteorites.com.au) (latest update 26 March 2006)
(7 June 2003), Cambridge Conference Network archive
(10 July 2003), Cambridge Conference Network archive
*
*
* Kasatkina, E.A. & Shumilov, O.I. (2005). ''Some atmospheric and magnetospheric effects possibly related to the Vitim bolide impact''. Retrieved June 24, 2005
* Chernobrov, Vadim & Soleny, Alexander & Lawrence, Maria (2003). ''Results from the VITIM-2003 expedition'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vitim event
Explosions in 2002
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
Explosions in Russia
History of Siberia
2002 in Russia
Natural disasters in Russia
September 2002 events in Russia