Trajectory and orbit of the unique carbonaceous meteorite Flensburg

Abstract

The C1-ungrouped carbonaceous chondrite Flensburg fell in Germany on September 12, 2019, in the daytime. We determined the atmospheric trajectory, velocity, and heliocentric orbit using one dedicated AllSky6 meteor camera and three casual video records of the bolide. It was found that the meteorite originated in the vicinity of the 5:2 resonance with Jupiter at heliocentric distance of 2.82 AU. When combined with the bolide energy reported by the U.S. Government sensors (USGS), the pre-atmospheric diameter of the meteoroid was estimated to 2 - 3 meters and the mass to 10,000 - 20,000 kg. The meteoroid fragmented heavily in the atmosphere at heights of 46 - 37 km, under dynamic pressures of 0.7 - 2 MPa. The recovery of just one meteorite suggests that only a very small part of the original mass reached the ground. The bolide velocity vector was compared with that reported by the USGS. There is good agreement in the radiant but the velocity value has been underestimated by the USGS by almost 1 km/s.

Preprint accepted for publication in Meteoritics & Planetary Science after a minor revision

References in corpus (4)

• The Maribo CM2 meteorite fall - survival of weak material at high entry speed
• The Sariçiçek howardite fall in Turkey: Source crater of HED meteorites on Vesta and impact risk of Vestoids
• The January 7, 2015, superbolide over Romania and structural diversity of meter-sized asteroids
• Supercatastrophic disruption of asteroids in the context of SOHO comet, fireball and meteor observations

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Data on 824 fireballs observed by the digital cameras of the European Fireball Network in 2017-2018. II. Analysis of orbital and physical properties of centimeter-sized meteoroids
• Oort cloud perturbations as a source of hyperbolic Earth impactors
• The Fireball of November 24, 1970, as the Most Probable Source of the Ischgl Meteorite
• The 18 May 2024 Iberian superbolide from a sunskirting orbit: USG space sensors and ground-based independent observations
• Error dependencies in the space-based CNEOS fireball database
• Orbit, meteoroid size, and cosmic ray exposure history of the Aguas Zarcas CM2 breccia
• Statistical significance of meteorite-asteroid pairs using geocentric parameters
• The Subaru-Asahi StarCam: Description of the system
• Decameter-sized Earth Impactors -- II: A Bayesian Inference Approach to Meteoroid Ablation Modeling