Satellite Liaison Blog

As I’m sure many of you are aware, a meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere early this morning in southern Russia which has led to ~1000 injuries and widespread window and building damage due to the shockwave. This shockwave was caused by the meteor exploding upon entering the Earth’s lower atmosphere due to intense friction and the high velocity of the meteor. A couple of the RGB products that we use in the GOES-R Proving Ground captured this event near the northeast limb of the Meteosat-10 satellite.

SEVIRI RGB Air Mass image showing the meteor explosion signal (white circle) valid at 0315 UTC on 02/15/2013.

Animation of the SEVIRI RGB Air Mass product valid on 02/15/2013.

The SEVIRI RGB Air Mass product captured the meteor explosion in the 0315 UTC image (highlighted with the white circle). Notice the streak over southern Russia as a whitish line. This color is usually seen when there is arctic air, for instance over Greenland. This would suggest that as hot as the explosion was, the smoke and any condensed moisture was very cold at a high altitude. An animation is provided in the second image, just click on the image.

The SEVIRI RGB Dust product shows the meteor as a red streak (white circle) valid at 0315 UTC on 02/15/2013.

An animation of the SEVIRI RGB Dust product valid on 02/15/2013.

The SEVIRI RGB Dust product also captured this meteor impact, but the signal was different due to the difference in infrared bands that are used to create the product. In this first image, the white circle highlights the meteor streak as a red line. This is because the signal was cold, similar to strong thunderstorms (cumulonimbus clouds) or ice clouds. The animation below this shows how the streak signal last longer in this product than in the Air Mass product.

This shows us an unusual and different approach to using RGB products in a non-meteorological setting. Thanks for reading!