[meteorite-list] Not space junk

From: Matson, Robert <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:37:32 2004
Message-ID: <AF564D2B9D91D411B9FE00508BF1C8692C5D48_at_US-Torrance.mail.saic.com>

Hi All,

Jake wrote:

> No, no beers. Serious observation. Best way to describe it would be like
a
> very bright flare traveling in a straight line and changing colors. One
> other thing is that it moved much slower than a "shooting star".

...and earlier:

> While I was going for a walk tonight, here in Amarillo, TX, ABOUT 5:40
CDT,
> in the south sky I saw a BIG ASS FIREBALL, the sun hadn't set yet and
> there was still a large amount of sunlight. It was changing colors from
> Green to white, and here is the coolest part, I saw it dropping pieces,
> much like the Peekskill fireball. This is the first fireball like this I
> have ever seen, nothing like a "shooting star". I followed it across
> the sky, it was headed, what looked like S to SW.

A couple people have offered up space-junk reentry as a possibility, but
I think that can be ruled out due to the direction of motion (SW). One
question: when you say it was headed "what looked like S to SW",
do you mean it started in the south and was headed toward the SW,
or that the direction of travel was somewhere intermediate between
S and SW (i.e. SSW)? If the former, then it wasn't space junk. If
the latter, it's remotely possible. However, I've done a search of all
8300+
orbiting bodies, and nothing was expected to reenter close to Amarillo
at that time. --Rob
Received on Wed 06 Dec 2000 08:40:31 PM PST