[meteorite-list] Night sky rumbles as meteor blazes path

From: Matt Morgan <mmorgan_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:27:44 2004
Message-ID: <DJEHIHPEEMGNJLMPFAEIGEKHDBAA.mmorgan_at_mhmeteorites.com>

Night sky rumbles as meteor blazes path
BY KENNETH HEARD ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

JONESBORO — A latenight stroller thought the fiery trail in the sky Monday
night resembled the blue-hot flame of a welding machine.
   A science teacher assumed the boom she heard was a neighbor dropping a
large kitchen appliance while moving into a new home.
   Others believed it was an earthquake or someone trying to break into
their homes.
   Whatever they imagined it was, the meteor that blazed through the
northeast Arkansas sky shook up plenty of people in a 50-mile radius of
Jonesboro.
   "It was pretty intense," said Gary Patterson, a geologist with the Center
for Earthquake Research and Information in Memphis. Patterson, using seismic
information that normally helps track quakes, calculated the sonic boom
occurred somewhere between Wynne and Trumann.
   A team was headed to the area to search for debris, he said.
   "It depends upon how big the meteor was, how fast it was going and the
angle of descent for us to find it," he said.
   Residents reported hearing the loud noise shortly before 10 p.m. Monday
from as far north as West Plains, Mo., to Brinkley in the south.
   "We had numerous calls about it," said Bob Andrews, director of Jonesboro
’s police dispatch center. "A lot of people thought prowlers were on top of
their houses."
   Roger Lee was taking his nightly two-mile walk around his neighborhood in
northeast Jonesboro when he noticed the ground suddenly basking in a blue
light.
   "I thought it was a mercury vapor street light coming on," he said. "I
looked up and saw an intense fireball. It looked as bright blue as an arc
welder in the sky."
   Lee sees meteors often on his strolls, though most are pin-sized streaks.
This one was as large as a penny held at arm’s length, he said.
   The astounding projectile headed west and broke up into four pieces
southwest of Jonesboro.
   Then came the teeth-rattling boom.
   "It felt like my wall rippled. I thought someone was banging on my
house," said Jim Lafayette, who lives near the Jonesboro Municipal Airport.
"It woke my wife up."
   Teresa Fuller heard the blast in her Jonesboro neighborhood near the
fairgrounds and thought her new neighbors had dropped a refrigerator as they
were moving in, she said.
   Fuller, a science teacher at Cross County High School, talked with her
students about the meteor Tuesday. Some felt the boom in Cherry Valley,
Wynne and Vanndale.
   P. Clay Sherrod who works at the Arkansas Sky Observatory on Petit Jean
Mountain, was watching a comet with the station’s powerful telescope on
Monday when he espied several meteors shoot across the sky. The intensity of
the shower surprised him.
   The team from Memphis probably won’t find any remains of the meteor.
Meteors, debris from the tails of comets that orbit the sun, travel at
25,000 mph and incinerate in a spectacular manner as they pass through the
earth’s atmosphere, he said in response to an email inquiry from the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
   "Quite spectacular," Sherrod wrote of the light show, the magnitude of
which was "considerably brighter than the planet Venus."
   According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, there’s a
one in 2 billion chance of being hit by a meteor.
   The chances of seeing another big meteor this week, however, are better.
The Taurid meteor shower, a lengthy event made up of two breakups of the
comet Encke, should peak in the southern sky tonight. A second peak, when
meteors are most frequent, is expected in the northern sky on Nov. 12.

===========
Matt Morgan
Mile High Meteorites
http://www.mhmeteorites.com
PO Box 151293
Lakewood, CO 80215 USA
FAX: 303-763-6917
Received on Wed 05 Nov 2003 10:03:08 AM PST