Abstract
Thirteen hours after the tragic explosion of the U.S. space shuttle “Challenger” at an altitude of 15km on 29th January 1986, a sequence of strong infrasonic waves was received by a set of sensitive microbarographs on the ground level about 14300km distant. These waves, with periods 400–700 seconds, amplitude about 30Pa and propagation velocity about 300m/s are very similar in character to those from nuclear explosions.
Based on the analysis of the power spectrum, the main period of the signal can be determined as 537 sec and over 90 per cent of the energy concentrates within the range of 300–1000 sec.
According to the theoretical formula for nuclear explosions, the equivalence of this explosion can be estimated from the wave characters as 140 Mt of TNT. This estimation is on the high side, owing to the fact that, compared with nuclear explosions, the altitude at which the explosion has taken place is much higher and the mechanisms of these two explosions are quite different.
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