[meteorite-list] Bright Meteor Over Ohio

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:07 2004
Message-ID: <200202201711.JAA29385_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/weather-story.php&time=1014094800

Bright meteors like last week's are rare
Dispatch.com (Ohio)
February 19, 2002

I was among the lucky ones who saw the brilliant meteor streaking across the
northern sky at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

My wife and I and another couple were driving through Grandview Heights after
having dinner at a Downtown restaurant.

The meteor was seen by lots of people and widely reported afterward.

It was the brightest meteor I've ever seen. I've seen a ton of those little slivers
of light that I call falling stars or shooting stars.

A few years back I was driving north on Rt. 315 when I saw a meteor blaze
across the sky over the Ohio State University campus. That one looked to be the
size of a fiery baseball arching across the sky.

The one on Wednesday was so bright that the guy with me said it looked like a
burning airplane crashing toward the horizon.

Tom Burns, director of Perkins Observatory in Delaware County, said
Wednesday's meteor was traveling about 100,000 mph, 40 to 50 miles above
Michigan and Canada.

Folks up there heard its sonic boom.

Burns estimated the meteor might have been the size of a filing cabinet. It made
so much light because it ionized the air around it as it sped along and burned up in
the atmosphere.

"You're not really seeing the object, you're seeing the air around it," Burns said.

"That object may have been floating around in space for 5 billion years, since the
beginning of the solar system, and now it is no more."

I told Burns I remember every bright meteor I've ever seen. The latest fireball
burned itself into my memory.

"I've seen maybe eight as bright as you described," Burns said. "They stick in my
memory the rest of my life. The first one you see, you'll never forget and the last
one you see, you'll never forget. It's a lifetime experience."

The reason so many people saw this meteor was because it happened on a clear
night over a populated area in the early evening.

"Somewhere on Earth every single night of the year there is a fireball that bright,"
Burns said. "A trillion particles enter the Earth's atmosphere every day."

Most are not seen, though, because much of the planet is not occupied and clouds
can screen them.

The best time for a meteor to be noticed is between 7 and 9 p.m. in the winter
when people are still up and around, he said.
Received on Wed 20 Feb 2002 12:11:53 PM PST