Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Meteoritic dust from the atmospheric disintegration of a large meteoroid

Nature volume 436, pages 1132–1135 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Much of the mass of most meteoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere is consumed in the process of ablation. Larger meteoroids (> 10 cm), which in some cases reach the ground as meteorites, typically have survival fractions near 1–25 per cent of their initial mass1. The fate of the remaining ablated material is unclear, but theory suggests that much of it should recondense through coagulation as nanometre-sized particles2. No direct measurements of such meteoric ‘smoke’ have hitherto been made3. Here we report the disintegration of one of the largest meteoroids to have entered the Earth's atmosphere during the past decade, and show that the dominant contribution to the mass of the residual atmospheric aerosol was in the form of micrometre-sized particles. This result is contrary to the usual view that most of the material in large meteoroids is efficiently converted to particles of much smaller size through ablation4. Assuming that our observations are of a typical event, we suggest that large meteoroids provide the dominant source of micrometre-sized meteoritic dust at the Earth's surface over long timescales.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Optical light curve for the 03 Sep 2004 fireball as measured by DoE space-based sensors.
Figure 2: The first unambiguous detection of lidar backscatter from the dust trail of a large meteoroid.
Figure 3: Comparison between the time–altitude characteristics of the lidar-detected aerosols and the predictions of a sedimentation model.
Figure 4: Evidence that the lidar backscatter was due to non-spherical particles.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ceplecha, Z. et al. Meteor phenomena and bodies. Space Sci. Rev. 84, 327–471 (1998)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Hunten, D. M., Turco, R. P. & Toon, O. B. Smoke and dust particles of meteoric origin in the mesosphere and stratosphere. J. Atmos. Sci. 37, 1342–1357 (1980)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Jenniskens, P. Meteor induced chemistry, ablation products, and dust in the middle and upper atmosphere from optical spectroscopy of meteors. Adv. Space. Res 33, 1444–1454 (2004)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Artemieva, N. A. & Shuvalov, V. V. Motion of a fragmented meteoroid through the planetary atmosphere. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 3297–3309 (2001)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Ceplecha, Z., Spurny, P., Borovicka, J. & Keclikova, J. Atmospheric fragmentation of meteoroids. Astron. Astrophys. 279, 615–626 (1993)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. ReVelle, D. O. in Proc. Asteroids, Comets, Meteors (ACM 2002, International Conference, 29 July–2 August 2002, Berlin, Germany) (ed. Warmbein, B.) ESA SP-500, 127–136 (ESA Publications, Noordwijk, Netherlands, 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Brown, P., Spalding, R. E., ReVelle, D. O., Tagliaferri, E. & Worden, S. P. The flux of small near-Earth objects colliding with the Earth. Nature 420, 294–296 (2002)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Edwards, W. N., Brown, P. & ReVelle, D. O. Bolide Energy Estimates from Infrasonic Measurements. Earth, Moon and Planets (Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, in the press)

  9. Britt, D. T. & Consolmagno, G. J. Stony meteorite porosities and densities: A review of the data through 2001. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 38, 1161–1180 (2003)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Klekociuk, A. R., Lambert, M. M., Vincent, R. A. & Dowdy, A. J. First year of Rayleigh lidar measurements of middle atmosphere temperatures above Davis, Antarctica. Adv. Space Res. 32, 771–776 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Santacesaria, V., Mackenzie, A. R. & Stefanutti, L. A climatological study of polar stratospheric clouds (1989–1997) from LIDAR measurements over Dumont d'Urville (Antarctica). Tellus B 53, 306–321 (2001)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. Gobbi, G. P., Di Donfrancesco, G. & Adriani, A. Physical properties of stratospheric clouds during the Antarctic winter of 1995. J. Geophys. Res. 103, 10859–10873 (1998)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Fetzer, E. et al. AIRS/AMSU/HSB Validation. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 41, 418–431 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Morris, G. A., Ziemke, J., Gleason, J. & Schoeberl, M. R. Trajectory mapping: A tool for satellite data validation. J. Geophys. Res. 105, 17875–17894 (2000)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Swinbank, R. & O'Neill, A. A. Stratosphere-troposphere data assimilation system. Mon. Weath. Rev. 122, 686–702 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Adachi, H., Shibata, T., Iwasaka, Y. & Fujiwara, M. Calibration method for the lidar-observed stratospheric depolarization ratio in the presence of liquid aerosol particles. Appl. Opt. 36, 6578–6595 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Mishchenko, M. & Travis, L. D. Capabilities and limitations of current FORTRAN implementation of the T-Matrix method for randomly oriented, rotationally symmetric scatterers. J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 60, 309–324 (1998)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Mishchenko, M. & Hovienier, J. W. Depolarization of light backscattered by randomly oriented nonspherical particles. Opt. Lett. 20, 1356–1358 (1995)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Jager, C. et al. A database of optical constants of cosmic dust analogs. J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 79/80, 765–774 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Rothman, L. S. et al. The HITRAN molecular database: Editions of 1991 and 1992. J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 48, 469–507 (1992)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  21. Lazzarin, M., di Martino, M., Barucci, M. A., Doressoundriam, A. & Florczak, M. Compositional properties of Near-Earth Asteroids: spectroscopic comparison with ordinary chondrite meteorites. Astron. Astrophys. 327, 388–391 (1997)

    CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  22. Penner, J. E. et al. in Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ed. Houghton, J. T. et al.) 289–348 (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Toon, O. B. & Farlow, N. H. Particles above the tropopause: Measurements and models of stratospheric aerosols, meteoric debris, nacreous clouds, and noctilucent clouds. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 9, 19–58 (1981)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  24. Lal, D. & Jull, A. J. T. Atmospheric cosmic dust fluxes in the range 10-4 to 10 centimeters. Astrophys. J. 576, 1090–1097 (2002)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Karner, D. B. et al. Extraterrestrial accretion from the GISP2 ice core. Geochem. Cosmochim. Acta 67, 751–763 (2003)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  26. Fisher, A. A., Hawkes, R. L., Murray, I., Campbell, M. D. & LeBlanc, A. G. Are meteoroids really dustballs? Planet. Space. Sci. 48, 911–920 (2000)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Gerding, M. et al. Observation of an unusual mid-stratospheric aerosol layer in the Arctic: possible sources and implications for polar vortex dynamics. Ann. Geophys. 21, 1057–1069 (2003)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The Davis lidar observations are funded by the Department of the Environment and Heritage of the Australian Government. We thank D. McCormack and R. L. Hawkes for discussions. This work was supported in part by the Canada Research Chair programme, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and The Aerospace Corporation's Independent Research and Development programme.Author Contributions A.R.K. developed the Davis lidar instrument, identified and analysed the bolide event in the lidar observations and co-wrote this Letter. P.G.B. helped interpret global infrasound network data, performed entry modelling and co-wrote this Letter. W.N.E. analysed global infrasound network data. D.O.R. performed entry modelling and helped interpret the global infrasound network. D.W.P, R.E.S., E.T. and B.B.Y. analysed Department of Defense and Department of Energy satellite data. J.Z. undertook initial and follow-up lidar observations, and assisted with data analysis.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Space and Atmospheric Sciences, Australian Antarctic Division, Tasmania, 7050, Kingston, Australia

    Andrew R. Klekociuk & Joseph Zagari

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 3K7, Canada

    Peter G. Brown & W. N. Edwards

  3. The Aerospace Corporation, 2350 E. El Segundo Blvd, California, 90245-4691, El Segundo, USA

    Dee W. Pack, Edward Tagliaferri & Bernard B. Yoo

  4. Los Alamos National Laboratory, PO Box 1663, MS J577, New Mexico, 87545, Los Alamos, USA

    Douglas O. ReVelle

  5. Sandia National Laboratory, Org. 5740, MS 0973, PO Box 5800, New Mexico, 87185, Albuquerque, USA

    Richard E. Spalding

Authors
  1. Andrew R. Klekociuk
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Peter G. Brown
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Dee W. Pack
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Douglas O. ReVelle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. W. N. Edwards
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Richard E. Spalding
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Edward Tagliaferri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Bernard B. Yoo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Joseph Zagari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrew R. Klekociuk.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table

This table provides the atmospheric trajectory and heliocentric orbit parameters for the 03 Sep 2004 fireball. Word Doc (36kb) (DOC 36 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Klekociuk, A., Brown, P., Pack, D. et al. Meteoritic dust from the atmospheric disintegration of a large meteoroid. Nature 436, 1132–1135 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03881

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03881

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing