The Qaanaaq airburst as an analog of seismic source in extraterrestrial atmospheres: seismic and infrasound investigation

On July 25, 2018, a meteoroid-associated airburst occurred near the Qaanaaq town, in Greenland, at approximately 22:00 UTC (20:00 local time). The event generated seismic waves that were recorded by two stations of the Danish Seismological Network (TULEG and NEEM) and the bolide trajectory was consequently calculated by the NASA Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). The total impact energy, calculated by CNEOS was 2.1 kT of TNT and the brightest point on its trajectory corresponds to an altitude of around 43 km, at a distance of about 50 km S of the Qaanaaq town and 50 km N of the TULEG station and the Thule Air Force Base [1].

An airburst occurring over the icy surface of Greenland is a rare terrestrial analog for regions of the Solar System, where both an atmosphere and an icy surface exist. In the past, a variety of works had indicated the presence of ice on Titan, the biggest moon of Saturn (e.g. [2] and more recently [3]) and more precisely, the icy composition of mountains which are formed by tectonic activity [4]. Titan has a relatively thick atmosphere, compared to those of other moons in the Solar System, composed mainly (94%) of nitrogen [5]. The characterization of atmospheric meteoroid-associated seismic sources for Titan has a particular interest, as it is found that, contrary to other moons of the solar system, the presence of craters on its surface is extremely low (only about 0.4% according to [3]). The reason for this low cratering of the surface is the presence of the thick atmosphere, into which many of the meteoroids are entirely ablated into dust. Therefore, a methodology for the characterization of airbursts as seismic sources and the modeling of the associated generated seismic waves is necessary for a future seismic experiment, as any recorded signal will either be a direct atmospheric wave (nonlinear shock wave, or linear acoustic wave) or a seismic wave generated through the coupling of the atmospheric and solid/ice part.
 
In the present study, our aim is to perform a seismic investigation of the Greenland ice shell with the use of the airburst-associated seismic source. The performed tasks into which this effort has been divided, include the application of a technique which approaches the bolide as an atmospheric seismic source, the calculation of the distance of shock wave propagation in the atmosphere, the description of the mechanism of generation of the seismic waves in the atmosphere and the solid-icy part.

When the bolides enter the atmosphere of the Earth or that of any other body, shock waves are generated along the trajectory of the meteoroid. These waves are characterized by the overpressure that they generate, which create a clear pressure discontinuity in the atmosphere, referred to as the nonlinear part of the shock wave propagation. The propagation distance of this nonlinear wave is associated to the ratio of the meteoroid speed to the ambient sound speed, also known as the Mach number, as well as the physical diameter of the meteoroid. In this work, we compute this distance for the Earth case and for the known trajectory of the detected and examined bolide [1][6].

The methodology developed in this study can serve the seismic investigation of structures covered by ice on planets or planetary bodies with a relatively thick atmosphere, where airbursts can occur due to the friction of the meteoroid with the ambient atmospheric material. An ideal example of this case are the icy mountains of Titan, which are known to be formed by tectonic activity on the Saturn’s moon [4]. The future Dragonfly mission to Titan will carry a seismometer as part of the DraGMet (Dragonfly Geophysics and Meteorology Package) payload [7]. Even if the primary goal of the mission is the characterization of the regolith properties, an eventual airburst and collection of seismic data near these mountainous icy structures, will be a great opportunity to investigate, through the identification of the associated waves and thus the investigation of the coupled seismic waves, the properties of this icy cover, its depth and composition.

References: [1] https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/ [2] Sohl, F. et al. (1995) Icarus, 115, 278–294 [3] Lopes R.M.C. et al. (2019) Nat Astron, [4] Radebaugh J. et al. (2007) Icarus, 192, 77-91, [5] Niemann H.B. et al. (2005) Nature, 438, 779–784 [6] Schmerr, N. et al. (2018) Abstract P21E-3406, AGU Fall Meeting 2018, Washington DC [7] Lorenz R. et al. (2018) Johns Hop- kins APL Technical Digest, 34, 3