Chelyabinsk Meteor Collided With Asteroid Before Hitting Earth

A wealth of research has come following the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia’s Ural Mountains on February 15, 2013. The latest study, which comes from scientists at the University of Tohoku in Japan, claims that the meteor collided with an asteroid before heading on its collision course with Earth.

Analysis of a mineral called jadeite found embedded in fragments recovered after the explosion show that the parent body of the meteor had collided with a larger asteroid of at least 492 feet wide and at a relative speed of 3,000 mph.

“This impact might have separated the Chelyabinsk asteroid from its parent body and delivered it to the Earth,” wrote lead author Shin Ozawa, whose research is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The 2013 explosion is known as the second largest asteroid airburst in human history. The research team noted that this discovery is expected to give scientists more insight into how asteroids may end up on a collision course with Earth in the first place.

It may be of concern that space rocks out there that are known to not be on Earth trajectories now could eventually hit Earth if they do encounter other asteroids in space. However, the scientists believe the Chelyabinsk rock had its collision around 290 million years ago.

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