[meteorite-list] Bolide Lights Up Morning Sky Over Virginia, Maryland

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:53:32 2004
Message-ID: <200212031715.JAA11932_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.wtopnews.com/?sid=25146&nid=25

Bolide Lights Up Morning Sky
WTOP
December 2, 2002

WASHINGTON - The bright light many people saw streaking
across the sky early morning Monday was a bolide or fireball,
said Geoff Chester, a spokesman at the U.S. Naval Observatory.

"This is basically a large meteor. We're talking about a rock
here that's on the order of size of a suitcase or something like
that. It's been orbiting the sun for billions of years," Chester
said.

"In reality, this object is entering the Earth's atmosphere. At
an altitude of between 80 to 100 miles or so it is vaporizing and
leaving a very bright trail of light behind it," Chester said.

"In a way it's kind of similar to the Leonid meteors that we just
had a couple of weeks ago. Instead of being a little bit of fluff
that sputtered off a comet that we run into every year, this is
just a random, fairly large rock that runs into the Earth's
atmosphere," he said.

WTOP callers in Virginia and Maryland reported seeing the natural
phenomenon between 5 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Callers described it as a
very big ball of blue-ish green with a tail 300 to 400 yards long.

"It was absolutely beautiful. It looked like it was going to hit
the ground," said one listener who called from Culpeper County, Va.

She described it as a lot longer than the meteors seen during the
recent Leonid meteor showers.

One Waldorf, Md., caller said when people saw it, they started
pulling off the road.

Chester said the last time a bolide was seen was on July 23, 2001,
between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. People reported seeing it from
New York to Virginia.
Received on Tue 03 Dec 2002 12:15:50 PM PST