[meteorite-list] Scientists Fired Up To Find Meteors That Flew Over Colorado

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:06:59 2004
Message-ID: <200210101840.LAA11199_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E911838%257E,00.html

Scientists all fired up to find meteors that flew over state
By George Merritt
The Denver Post
October 9, 2002

Scientists hope to find the remnants of two meteors that lit up the
evening sky on Sunday and Monday.

Officials at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science were abuzz Tuesday,
calling two fireballs coming to Earth on consecutive days, at nearly the
same time of day, "very, very unusual."

"They carry quite a lesson on the history of our solar system," said
Dr. Jack Murphy, the geology curator at the museum. "And they
come to us for free. We don't have to go up in a spaceship."

Scientists can test the composition of a meteor to find its origin.
Murphy said meteors usually are small pieces of the moon, Mars
or the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Murphy said the actual pieces of the meteors could be very small
and possibly buried in the ground from impact, but he is hopeful
someone witnessed one hit the ground.

To that end, Murphy and his colleagues are triangulating witness
reports to keep the search for the space rocks less like a needle in
a haystack. They have narrowed the search for Sunday's meteor to
the region around Rio Blanco in the western part of the state. The
search area is still massive and remote, so Murphy is banking on
someone having seen it hit.

"We hope that one hit somebody's barn," Murphy said.

They believe Monday's meteor shot over Colorado and broke up
over New Mexico.

As meteors get closer to the ground, the thick air blows them into
smaller pieces that compound an already difficult search.

The two meteors have excited both the scientific community and
bystanders around the West because of their luminosity and
irregularity. Both of the fireballs put on a wild display of color, with
reports of everything from green and blue to orange and red.

"It seemed like it could be a missile," Howard Cook said of his first
glance at Monday's meteor.

Cook, also a scientist at the museum, was driving home to
Colorado Springs when he saw the meteor shooting from north to
south over the Front Range.

"It was a very bright green ball of fire," Cook said. "It had orange
and red sparks shooting off of it."

Meteors travel at such high speeds that contact with the air in
Earth's atmosphere makes them so hot they flare into a
magnificent light show.

Cook said the bright ball appeared to be about the size of a softball
held at arm's length and was visible for almost 10 seconds.

Both meteors came between 7:15 and 7:25 p.m. They were not
predicted, but Murphy said there is no indication that they came
from a previously unknown meteor shower.

"Meteor showers produce little shooting stars," Murphy said.
"These were larger fireballs that are associated with pieces of
asteroids."
Received on Thu 10 Oct 2002 02:40:01 PM PDT