CHICORA METEORITE — PRESTON, HENDERSON, RANDOLPH 405 



This action is complicated, so that the result we are after can be 

 obtamed more simply by applying the box theorem to the process. 

 In this case we put the box around the front part of the turbulence, 

 so that at the front the nonsonic part of the meteor's kinetic energy 

 is going into the box, and at the rear there is coming out a smoke cloud, 

 expanded to atmospheric pressure and completely stopped, but not yet 

 diffused into the surrounding air. As no energy or matter of any 

 consequence goes in or out elsewhere, and as there is no storage, then 

 the energy going into the box, in the form of kinetic energy, must equal 

 the energy coming out, in the form of increased PV energy of the 

 smoke cloud. 



Energy =Pr 



where P is the atmospheric pressure, V the volume of the smoke cloud, 

 T2 the absolute temperature of the smoke cloud at this stage, and Ti 

 the absolute temperature of the atmosphere. 



In this computation the product PV is computed first, and the 

 t(?niperature brought in later as a correction term. The smoke cloud 

 is divided into two parts: The "upper" cloud, extending from the 

 12-mile level down to the 10-mile, and having an average diameter, 

 from Heyl's sketch (fig. 19) of 3,500 feet, and the "lower" cloud, 

 extending from there to Chicora. Because it runs through a wide 

 pressure range, the lower cloud is computed as a series of cylinders, 

 wliile a single computation suffices for the upper cloud. 



For both computations the formula, m English units, is: 



PV=LD' ^X144 P^l^^ 



XD'P. 



From top to bottom of the upper cloud the difference m altitude 

 is 2 miles, and the lower cloud is divided into sections of the same 



length. Hence Z= C^^ '*; = 20,700 feet. 



For the lower cloud the product D^P is computed separately for 

 each section ; then these are added and multiplied by the rest of the 

 equation, which has a value of 2,330,000. 



