In the early morning of December 23, when the sky was just bright and the sun had not yet risen, many netizens in Qamdo, Qinghai and other places found that the morning glow in the sky was particularly strange - like a fairy throwing a ribbon under the canopy, and like a golden phoenix spreading its wings, many netizens exclaimed spectacularly at the same time expressed doubts "What is this cloud?" "Is it a sign of some bizarre event?"
The Qiyun observed in Qamdo, Tibet, came from Weibo netizens
The Qiyun observed by Qinghai Yushu came from Weibo netizen @Maizi Sun
What is this cloud? Speaking of this strange cloud layer, first of all, we must say that the huge fireball observed in many places in Qinghai, Tibet today - around 7:30 a.m. Beijing time on December 23, Qinghai Yushu, Tibet Qamdo and other places appeared in the sky of strange bright lights, according to the video footage taken by netizens, a huge fireball from the sky, for a time the sky was illuminated by this huge fireball, a moment as bright as day, and soon the light disappeared.
This situation is suspected to be a meteor incident, such as around 21:50 on June 1, 2018, people in many places from the border area between China and Myanmar to the Xishuangbanna area of Yunnan Province also witnessed similar incidents. According to the netizen video, an extremely bright object suddenly crossed the dark night sky, flashing at the same time, and the bright light disappeared after about 5 seconds. In addition, some netizens reacted to the explosion sound about 1 minute after the light appeared, suspected of landing, there was a sense of shock, and then confirmed that this was a meteor event, and there were meteorite debris falling to the ground.
Fire meteors, meteorite drops... The words sound mild, even romantic, but another word is a bit scary: asteroid impact. However, at present, the global observation data of the asteroid impact event in Qinghai and Tibet in China is still relatively small, and it is not possible to determine how large the asteroid impact is, because the terrain in Qinghai tibet is complex and relatively remote, and it is not yet possible to determine whether there is a meteorite falling to the ground.
Footage of a meteorite landing in the cartoon "Your Name"
If the meteorite is bigger, faster, and more populated, it is still very dangerous. For example, on February 15, 2013, a similar incident occurred in Chelyabinsk, Russia. Also in the early morning, a large fireball streaked across the sky for a moment as bright as day, which was an asteroid with a diameter of about 15-20 meters that crashed into the Earth's atmosphere and was heated and shattered at a high altitude, and the event caused thousands of injuries, not to mention larger asteroids, which was even more dangerous.
During the Chelyabinsk asteroid impact, a building was damaged near the blast site
However, the collision of a large asteroid with the Earth is a small probability event, and it is likely that you and I will not see it in our lifetime. According to NASA monitoring data, since April 15, 1988, there have been 721 recorded meteorite landings on Earth, an average of 25 per year, and most meteorites burn out in the atmosphere and do not directly affect the ground; among these more than 700 events, the most energetic is the 2013 Chelyabinsk in Russia.
That goes back to the strange clouds observed in Qinghai, Tibet and other places this morning, which is exactly the fire meteor that burned violently in this area this morning, forming a large amount of dust in the middle and high altitudes, and these dust condensed water vapor into ice crystals, and finally formed a strange cloud layer.
#青海火流星 #