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Comets and asteroids are recognized by the scientists and the governments of all countries in the world to be one of the most significant threats to the development and even the existence of our civilization. Preventing this threat includes studying the motion of large meteors through the atmosphere that is accompanied by various physical and chemical phenomena. Of particular interest to such studies are the meteors whose trajectories have been recorded and whose fragments have been found on Earth. Here, we study one of such cases. We develop a model for the motion and destruction of natural bodies in the Earth’s atmosphere, focusing on the Benešov bolid (EN070591), a bright meteor registered in 1991 in the Czech Republic by the European Observation System. Unique data, that includes the radiation spectra, is available for this bolid. We simulate the aeroballistics of the Benešov meteoroid and of its fragments, taking into account destruction due to thermal and mechanical processes. We compute the velocity of the meteoroid and its mass ablation using the equations of the classical theory of meteor motion, taking into account the variability of the mass ablation along the trajectory. The fragmentation of the meteoroid is considered using the model of sequential splitting and the statistical stress theory, that takes into account the dependency of the mechanical strength on the length scale. We compute air flows around a system of bodies (shards of the meteoroid) in the regime where mutual interplay between them is essential. To that end, we develop a method of simulating air flows based on a set of grids that allows us to consider fragments of various shapes, sizes, and masses, as well as arbitrary positions of the fragments relative to each other. Due to inaccuracies in the early simulations of the motion of this bolid, its fragments could not be located for about 23 years. Later and more accurate simulations have allowed researchers to locate four of its fragments rather far from the location expected earlier. Our simulations of the motion and destruction of the Benešov bolid show that its interaction with the atmosphere is affected by multiple factors, such as the mass and the mechanical strength of the bolid, the parameters of its motion, the mechanisms of destruction, and the interplay between its fragments.

An algorithm for solving the conjugation of aerodynamic and ballistic problems, which is based on the method of modeling with the help of a grid system, has been complemented by a numerical mechanism that allows to take into account the relative movement and rotation of bodies relative to their centers of mass. For a given configuration of the bodies a problem of flow is solved by relaxation method. After that the state of the system is recalculated after a short amount of time. With the use of iteration it is possible to trace the dynamics of the system over a large period of time. The algorithm is implemented for research of flight of systems of bodies taking into account their relative position and rotation. The algorithm was tested on the problem of flow around a body with segmental-conical form. A good correlation of the results with experimental studies was shown. The algorithm is used to calculate the problem of the supersonic fight of a rotating body. For bodies of rectangular shape, imitating elongated fragments of a meteoroid, it is shown that for elongated bodies the aerodynamically more stable position is flight with a larger area across the direction of flight. This de facto leads to flight of bodies with the greatest possible aerodynamic resistance due to the maximum midship area. The algorithm is used to calculate the flight apart of two identical bodies of a rectangular shape, taking into account their rotation. Rotation leads to the fact that the bodies fly apart not only under the action of the pushing aerodynamic force but also the additional lateral force due to the acquisition of the angle of attack. The velocity of flight apart of two fragments with elongated shape of a meteoric body increases to three times with the account of rotation in comparison with the case, when it is assumed that the bodies do not rotate. The study was carried out in order to evaluate the influence of various factors on the velocity of fragmentation of the meteoric body after destruction in order to construct possible trajectories of fallen on earth meteorites. A developed algorithm for solving the conjugation of aerodynamic and ballistic problems, taking into account the relative movement and rotation of the bodies, can be used to solve technical problems, for example, to study the dynamics of separation of aircraft stages.

We study the motion and destruction of Chelyabinsk meteoroid using simple physical and mathematical models. We evaluate the parameters of the motion, taking into account the ablation and mechanical destruction of the meteoroid, and compare our results to the observation data.

The review considers a wide range of phenomena and problems associated with the explosion. Detailed numerical studies revealed an interesting physical effect — the formation of discrete vortex structures directly behind the front of a shock wave propagating in dense layers of a heterogeneous atmosphere. The necessity of further investigation of such phenomena and the determination of the degree of their connection with the possible development of gas-dynamic instability is shown. The brief analysis of numerous works on the thermal explosion of meteoroids during their high-speed movement in the Earth’s atmosphere is given. Much attention is paid to the development of a numerical algorithm for calculating the simultaneous explosion of several fragments of meteoroids and the features of the development of such a gas-dynamic flow are analyzed. The work shows that earlier developed algorithms for calculating explosions can be successfully used to study explosive volcanic eruptions. The paper presents and discusses the results of such studies for both continental and underwater volcanoes with certain restrictions on the conditions of volcanic activity.

The mathematical analysis is performed and the results of analytical studies of a number of important physical phenomena characteristic of explosions of high specific energy in the ionosphere are presented. It is shown that the preliminary laboratory physical modeling of the main processes that determine these phenomena is of fundamental importance for the development of sufficiently complete and adequate theoretical and numerical models of such complex phenomena as powerful plasma disturbances in the ionosphere. Laser plasma is the closest object for such a simulation. The results of the corresponding theoretical and experimental studies are presented and their scientific and practical significance is shown. The brief review of recent years on the use of laser radiation for laboratory physical modeling of the effects of a nuclear explosion on asteroid materials is given.

As a result of the analysis performed in the review, it was possible to separate and preliminarily formulate some interesting and scientifically significant questions that must be investigated on the basis of the ideas already obtained. These are finely dispersed chemically active systems formed during the release of volcanoes; small-scale vortex structures; generation of spontaneous magnetic fields due to the development of instabilities and their role in the transformation of plasma energy during its expansion in the ionosphere. It is also important to study a possible laboratory physical simulation of the thermal explosion of bodies under the influence of highspeed plasma flow, which has only theoretical interpretations.

On the basis of the MGD equations we consider 2D- and 3D- nonstationary problems about the evolution of perturbations in the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s ionosphere which are caused by the movement of large meteoroids along gently sloping paths of the entry with the simulation of their destruction by the momentary increase of the midship at the point of the pressure head maximum. According to the results of our numerical investigation we obtain and analyze the detailed spatial-temporal distributions of the main parameters of the plasma flows from which in particular a number of phenomena that are similar to those seen in the Chelyabinsk phenomenon follow.

Within the framework of the actual problem of comet-asteroid danger, the physical processes causing the destruction and fragmentation of meteor bodies in the Earth’s atmosphere are numerically investigated. Based on the developed physicalmathematical models that determines the movements of space objects of natural origin in the atmosphere and their interaction with it, the fall of three, one of the largest and by some parameters unusual bolides in the history of meteoritics, are considered: Tunguska, Vitim and Chelyabinsk. Their singularity lies in the absence of any material meteorite remains and craters in the area of the alleged crash site for the first two bodies and the non-detection, as it is assumed, of the main mother body for the third body (due to the too small amount of mass of the fallen fragments compared to the estimated mass). The effect of aerodynamic loads and heat flows on these bodies are studied, which leads to intensive surface mass loss and possible mechanical destruction. The velocities of the studied celestial bodies and the change in their masses are determined from the modernized system of equations of the theory of meteoric physics. An important factor that is taken into account here is the variability of the meteorite mass entrainment parameter under the action of heat fluxes (radiation and convective) along the flight path. The process of fragmentation of meteoroids in this paper is considered within the framework of a progressive crushing model based on the statistical theory of strength, taking into account the influence of the scale factor on the ultimate strength of objects. The phenomena and effects arising at various kinematic and physical parameters of each of these bodies are revealed. In particular, the change in the ballistics of their flight in the denser layers of the atmosphere, consisting in the transition from the fall mode to the ascent mode. At the same time, the following scenarios of the event can be realized: 1) the return of the body back to outer space at its residual velocity greater than the second cosmic one; 2) the transition of the body to the orbit of the Earth satellite at a residual velocity greater than the first cosmic one; 3) at lower values of the residual velocity of the body, its return after some time to the fall mode and falling out at a considerable distance from the intended crash site. It is the implementation of one of these three scenarios of the event that explains, for example, the absence of material traces, including craters, in the case of the Tunguska bolide in the vicinity of the forest collapse. Assumptions about the possibility of such scenarios have been made earlier by other authors, and in this paper their implementation is confirmed by the results of numerical calculations.