Chiba, Japan 千葉県
3 min read
Tokyo, JAPAN – July 2, 2020, 2:32 AM local time, U.S. Government sensors detected a large meteor fireball travelling ENE at 14.1 km/s, ending near Tokyo, above the Chiba Prefecture. Total atmospheric impact energy was equivalent to 165 tonnes of TNT!
The speed of the fireball was relatively slow, so it is very possible that fragments of the meteoroid survived the journey through the atmosphere. There were significant winds from the southwest at the time of the event, which would have blown any lighter meteorite fragments
Typically, meteoroids breaks apart during flight through the atmosphere. Much of the material evaporates in a process called ablation, leaving only small stones to find. Occaisionally, large meteor events can... northeast. Good luck and happy hunting!
| Date/Time: | 07/01/2020 17:32:03 UTC |
| Location: | 30km southeast of Tokyo, Japan |
| Reference Coordinates: | 35.627°N 139.936°E |
| Reference Altitude: | 22.8 km above sea level |
| Energy / Mass Estimate: | 0.365kt / 6942 kg |
| Reference Speed: | 14.1 km/s |
| Bearing: | 66.9° ENE |
| Slope: | 53.7° from vertical |
| Event Links: | SonotaCo.JP |
Video and News
Since the event happened in the early morning hours, it was not widely seen. Consequently, it did not receive widespread media coverage, but a few videos were recovered.
Search Efforts
This was a fairly large event, so you can expect meteorite hunters to be actively searching the area for a few weeks. If you woulds like to follow the search and future events in this region, please join the Facebook group:
StrewnLAB Search Area
A trajectory for this meteor was analyzed by SonotaCo.JP and run through the StrewnLAB
A computer simulation program, written by Jim Goodall. For more information, please visit the StrewnLAB Page.... software to predict a search area. Since the trajectory analysis was not performed by Strewnify, the error is unknown. This is an urban area, so we would expect citizens to report damage from falling meteorites, if anything sizeable reached the ground. Please download and review the Google Earth files below for details about the possible strewn field
The geographic area where meteorites landed, from a specific meteor event. The strewn field size and shape are affected by the size of the event, the slope of the meteor,....
Weather Data
The weather data below is sourced from weather balloons, and publicly available via NOAA’s Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA). This data is downloaded and post-processed by the StrewnLAB algorithm, to account for changing weather patterns and weather balloon drift. The plots have altitude on the y-axis, in kilometers above sea level. The wind speed below 10km has large effect on the drift of meteorites.
My name is Jim Goodall, and I am an automotive controls engineer in the Detroit area, but my passion is physics. I started this website as a hobby, to support the global network of meteorite hunters.
Feel free to contact me, if you have any questions about the products on this website. Jim Goodall | Hartland, Michigan, USA | james.a.goodall@gmail.com | +1 586 709 5888
