密歇根新闻广播 密歇根上空爆炸流星激起科学家兴趣

In January, there were sightings of a fireball in the sky over Southeast Michigan.

The following day, the United States Geological Survey confirmed it was a meteoroid which had exploded in the atmosphere.

At the time, the loud "boom" it caused was reported to register at 2.0 on the Richter scale, but for the USGS and NASA, it didn't seem like that big of a deal.

Now, it turns out this was all captured by a large number of sensors¹ including cameras, seismometers, and infrared² microphones providing scientists with a lot more information than they would normally get from this sort of event.

Jeroen Ritsema is a seismologist and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan. He joined Stateside's Lester Graham to discuss what this data revealed about this particular meteoroid.

According to Ritsema, this concentration of sensors provided scientists with three key observations: ground motion, recording³ of sound, and satellite images of visible light. The seismic⁴ activity that was recorded was caused simply by the sound of the meteoroid explosion.

"The sound of the explosion propagates through the atmosphere and it perturbs⁵ the ground a little bit, and that's enough for us to see on the seismometers that are buried within the ground," Ritsema said.

Listen above to hear Ritsema discuss how scientists are making sense of all this data collected and how useful it will be.

This post was written by Stateside production assistant Sophie Sherry.

1 sensors   

n.传感器，灵敏元件( sensor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were more than 2000 sensors here. 这里装有两千多个灵敏元件。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Significant changes have been noted where sensors were exposed to trichloride. 当传感器暴露在三氯化物中时，有很大变化。 来自辞典例句

2 infrared   

adj./n.红外线(的)

参考例句：

• Infrared is widely used in industry and medical science.红外线广泛应用于工业和医学科学。
• Infrared radiation has wavelengths longer than those of visible light.红外辐射的波长比可见光的波长长。

3 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

4 seismic   

a.地震的，地震强度的

参考例句：

• Earthquakes produce two types of seismic waves.地震产生两种地震波。
• The latest seismic activity was also felt in northern Kenya.肯尼亚北部也感觉到了最近的地震活动。

5 perturbs   

v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• What perturbs me is that magazine articles are so much shorter nowadays. 让我不安的是现在杂志文章都短多了。 来自辞典例句