Infrasound Station in Qaanaaq, Greenland (IMAGE)
Caption
The CTBTO monitors infrasound -- sound waves at frequencies too low to be detected by the human ear -- with 48 stations. Four more are under construction and another eight are planned. Twenty of the CTBTO's infrasound monitoring stations detected signals made by a meteor that had entered the atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia on February 15, 2013. A station in Antarctica, some 15,000 kilometres away, detected the meteor's sub-audible sound. The station detected sound waves generated by the blast twice, travelling in opposite directions, as they circumnavigated the Earth. A station in Alaska, some 6,500 kilometres away, clocked it circling the Earth three times.
Credit
Courtesy of CTBTO
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