[meteorite-list] New Mexico/California fireballs

From: Matson, Robert <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:50:21 2004
Message-ID: <AF564D2B9D91D411B9FE00508BF1C8698E5B38_at_US-Torrance.mail.saic.com>

Hi again,

Dug up the following out of my archives... --Rob

- - - - -

October 3, 1996: Unsolved Case
part 5: A year later

Meteorite Falls From Oct 1996
From: Ron Baalke <BAALKE_at_kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 14:14:51 GMT

NEWS RELEASE OCT. 1, 1997

Albuquerque, N.M. After a year of detective work involving scores of
eyewitness reports from across New Mexico and Texas, a group of scientists
has concluded that the Earth collided with a swarm of cosmic debris on the
night of Oct. 3-4, 1996.

The most widely-reported fireballs were ones over eastern New Mexico and the
Texas panhandle, and another near Bakersfield, California, exactly 104
minutes later. The relationship among the times, locations, and trajectories
of the meteors seemed too unlikely to be mere coincidence, and had initially
led some scientists to believe that a single object skimmed through the
atmosphere and re-entered after a single orbit.

After careful analysis of a videotape taken from El Paso, Texas, together
with eyewitness reports, Mark Boslough of Sandia National Laboratories and
Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario found that the first meteor
entered at too steep of an angle to skip off the atmosphere. They are now
convinced that the two fireballs observed over New Mexico/Texas and over
California were two different objects.

They also determined the most likely location in the Texas panhandle where
meteorites might have fallen, and John Wasson (UCLA) has re-issued a reward
for a sample. Brown and Boslough believe that any meteorites reaching the
ground in the Southwest would most likely be found south of Amarillo, near
the towns of Hereford and Canyon, where they were carried by winds to the
east of the visible trajectory. The most likely place for small meteorites
to have landed would be in an oblong area about 10 miles ESE if Hereford,
but any larger meteorites would be in a strip that stretches as far as 10
miles east of Canyon.

This part of the Texas Panhandle is well-known for its abundance of
meteorite finds because it is flat, with little vegetation and few natural
rocks on the surface. The most famous area is southwest of Plainview, where
over 900 meteorites were recovered after they fell in 1903, and were still
being found as late as 1949.

Over the past year, two groups of scientists from Los Alamos National
Laboratory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have also
reported low-frequency sound data showing that the Earth's atmosphere was
hit by at least 60 objects within several hours of the two that were
originally reported, two of which were also observed by Defense Department
satellites.

Most of the infrasound-producing meteors occurred during daylight hours and
were not seen by witnesses, but the large number of collisions taking place
that night helps explain why two bright ones with such similar trajectories
would be seen so closely spaced in time. Although the scientists eliminated
their hypothesis of a single object bouncing off the atmosphere and
re-entering it later, they are still very interested in the events of one
year ago because it means the Earth collided with a cluster of objects,
perhaps pieces of a broken asteroid. A sample of one of these meteorites
would help scientists determine what kind of asteroid spawned the fragments
and better understand how they break apart and explode in the atmosphere,
says Sandia's Mark Boslough.

Prof. John Wasson is seeking such samples and is offering a reward of $2,000
for the first confirmed sample as large as 4 ounces, and he urges persons
living within the calculated fall area to look in their fields, on the roofs
of buildings, in stock tanks and other locations where stones would not be
expected. Meteorite hunters are reminded to get permission of land owners,
and that any stones automatically belong to the owner of the property on
which it is found. The stones are most likely to be black with a fresh matte
texture. Samples should be sent to Prof. Wasson at the Institute of
Geophysics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, or to Dr. Adrian Brearley,
Institute of Meteoritics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131.
Each sample will be acknowledged, but those that are not meteorites will not
be returned unless a return self-addressed envelope is provided.
Received on Mon 01 Apr 2002 07:26:29 PM PST