Supercomputer Simulation of Chelyabinsk-like Asteroid Entering Earth’s Atmosphere

When an asteroid struck the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013, the blast from the asteroid’s shock wave broke windows and damaged buildings as far away as 58 miles, injuring more than 1,200 people. Today, researchers are creating 3-D models and using one of NASA’s most powerful supercomputers to produce simulations of hypothetical asteroid impact scenarios. Their results help first responders and other agencies to identify and make better informed decisions for how best to defend against life-threatening asteroid events. This simulation shows a cross-section of a Chelyabinsk-like asteroid (gray) breaking up during atmospheric entry at 45,000 mph (20 km per second). A hot, high-pressure shock wave (red, orange, yellow) forms around the asteroid, causing it to fracture and flatten like a pancake. Aerodynamic instabilities shed waves of material from the surface and tear the asteroid apart. The dispersed fragments (black) deposit most of the energy into the atmosphere within a relatively short distance, cre