[meteorite-list] re: daylight fireball over Wales pictures

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:19 2004
Message-ID: <010801c388d6$cd1aa440$66eb81d4_at_HAL>

> It looks real, but then the front end of the fireball
> looks fake

That was also my first initial reaction, untill I also looked at the second
picture and thought it all over and slightly changed my mind.

As both Rob McNaught and me have pointed out on the meteorobs mailing list,
the first picture does not show the actual fireball, but might show sunlight
reflecting on the dust trail left in the bolide wake (and in this sense the
subscript on the NASA website is incorrect). Indeed, if it IS a bolide which
caused this.

One of the meteorobs subscribers discovered that there is still info from
the camera header preserved in the picture, which suggests the picture were
taken with a few minutes time inbetween on September 24th, around 18:13 UTC.

If this date is correct, a satellite or rocket debris decay is not likely. I
checked but the NASA OIG server lists only one decay for the period Sep
23-27, and that was on the previous day, on Sep 23. It concerned a very
small piece of debris from a Thor Agena rocket, NORAD # 05226 (1970-025KH).
For security I also checked with the latest orbit for this object but even
if it had survived untill sep 24th it would not have passed over this part
of Europe around the time of this picture being taken. It would anyway have
been too small to cause something of this magnitude.

- Marco


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Marco Langbroek

marco.langbroek_at_wanadoo.nl
meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek

"What seest thou else
 In the dark backward and abysm of time?"

                            William Shakespeare
                            The Tempest act I scene 2
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Received on Thu 02 Oct 2003 07:15:11 AM PDT