Astronomers Reconstruct Russia Meteor Path Back to its Origins [VIDEO]

Using videos and a bit of trigonometry Colombian astronomers figured out the trajectory of the meteor that injured 1,000 in Chelyabinsk, Russia earlier this month.

The scientists Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, triangulated the speed and position of the meteorite as it fell to Earth. They were inspired by blogger Stefan Geens, who analyzed video of the shadows cast by light poles in Revolutionary Square as the blazing meteor passed overhead. Using simple trigonometry, Geens estimated the path of the meteor, noticing that it squared nicely with an image of the meteor's contrail that just happened to have been picked up by a European weather satellite.

Zulunga and Ferrin took Greens’ work one step further. According to their paper published online at arXiv.org, once they determined the meteor's path through the atmosphere, they were then able to trace its orbit around the sun. The scientists then plugged that data into astronomy software, which showed that the meteor was part of the so-called Apollo asteroid group, which have Earth-crossing orbits. Such an orbit indicates the meteor "most likely" originated in "the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter," says a researcher unrelated to the study.

Zuluaga and Ferrin's findings relies heavily on the assumptions that a 20-foot hole in the ice of Lake Chebarkul was caused by a fragment of the meteor, and that this fragment was traveling along the same trajectory as its parent body. Divers have yet to find a meteorite in the lake.

Meanwhile, Russian scientists have by no means been sleeping. They've learned that it's called a chondrite—the most common kind of space rock near Earth. And, as Popular Science reports, it spent 4.5 billion years in space before rocking Russia.