[meteorite-list] Great Ball Of Fire Lights Up New Zealand Sky

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:16:29 2004
Message-ID: <200308052008.NAA18127_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2600500a11,00.html

Great ball of fire lights up Aucklanders' lives
www.stuff.co.nz
06 August 2003

A spectacular fireball blazed across the northern sky yesterday, a piece
of the more than 30,000 tonnes of the normally invisible space junk that
hits Earth each year.

Observers in Auckland and from as far away as Whangarei described a
flaming, bright-red fireball with a long white tail shooting across the
sky from the northeast just before 6pm.

One man in Auckland suburb Orakei, who reported the sight to One Tree
Hill Stardome Observatory, said the meteor appeared to remain bright as
it disappeared over the horizon.

Another man, who was driving towards the Auckland Harbour Bridge, said
it was "amazing". "I saw the white light first and then it flared into a
green flash. I've never seen a green like it before."

Stardome spokeswoman Angela Doherty said the fireball, described as
having a "lingering white tail", was a piece of either human
space junk or space rock "that wandered just a bit too close to Earth".

Wellington's Carter Observatory spokesman John Field said it would be
difficult to gauge the size of the meteor but said it could have been as
big as a fist or the size of a person's head.

No one had been killed by a meteor but in 1911 one was blamed for
causing the death of a dog, he said.

Most space debris simply fell harmlessly and invisibly to the ground,
heating up and burning as it entered the atmosphere before dropping to
earth.
Received on Tue 05 Aug 2003 04:08:18 PM PDT