A blog post by Stefan Geens (who blogs "Notes on the political, social and scientific impact of networked digital maps and geospatial imagery, with a special focus on Google Earth") used CCTV and other data - and Google Earth - to calculate an estimate of the trajectory of the Chelyabinsk meteor.
ogleearth.com/2013/02/
He did so well that some astronomers at the Universidad de Antioquia (Medellín, Columbia) published a short paper in ArXiv.
arxiv.org/abs/1302.5377
They used Monte Carlo methods - and using Stefan Geens methodology - to make a preliminary estimate of the impacting asteroid's orbital parameters.
They suggest that the impacting asteroid was a member of the Apollo asteroid group.
The BBC carried the story - but did not reference the original blogger
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21579422
However, the authors of the ArXive paper say this in the paper:-
"It is interesting to stress that at using the methods and results published in the Geen’s blog, we are recognizing the fundamental contribution that enthusiastic people would have in specific scientific achievements"
I applaud Stefan Geens for this contribution.
Mark C.
