At
around 10:30 am on February 12,1947,
eyewitnesses in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains, Primorye, Russia, observed
a large bolide brighter than the Sun that came out of the north and
descended at an angle of about 41 degrees. The bright flash and the
deafening sound of the fall were observed for three hundred kilometres
around the point of impact not far from Luchegorsk and approximately
440 km northeast of Vladivostok. A smoke train, estimated at 32 km
long, remained in the sky for several hours.
As the meteorite
— traveling at a speed of about 14 km/s — entered
the atmosphere, it began to break apart, and the fragments fell
together. At an altitude of about 5.6 km, the largest mass apparently
broke up in a violent explosion. |