[meteorite-list] Green Glow Over North Carolina Could Have Been Meteor Shower

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:34 2004
Message-ID: <200310221931.MAA14472_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-405186.html

Green glow could've been meteor shower
BY JIM SHAMP
The Herald-Sun (North Carolina)
October 21. 2003

DURHAM -- Leftover junk from Comet Halley probably explains the mysteriously
bright, greenish streaker that crossed the heavens Monday night before
quickly disappearing in a blaze of glory.

That's the word from Bruce Carney, chairman of the UNC Department of Physics
and Astronomy, who fielded calls from the Triad, the Triangle and as far
away as Charlotte after arriving at his office Tuesday morning.

Actually, Comet Halley hasn't visited the Earth since 1986, when its wimpy
display was barely visible to the naked eye. That paled in comparison to its
fly-by in 1066, when it brought such terror to squinting and cowering
Europeans that it was said to have somehow enabled the Norman victory at the
Battle of Hastings.

But even though the comet's 76-year orbit won't bring it back until 2061,
the litter that it tossed out 17 years ago makes an Earthly appearance as
the Orionids meteor shower, which peaks this time every year.

Comet Halley, which is heated during its swing past the sun, loses ice and
rock as it hurtles through the galaxy. The debris particles, most of which
are the size of a grain of sand or even smaller, glow as brilliant shooting
stars when they hit Earth's atmosphere at 90,000 miles an hour. The big ones
burn brighter, experts say, often in colors that reflect the disintegration
of various minerals. And the really big ones -- the size of cars -- have the
ability to keep burning all the way to the ground, where they can create
spectacular fireworks-like displays before exploding and blowing craters
into the Earth's surface.

Those big, bright meteorites, which have rounded fronts and fiery tails of
the sort described Monday by many area residents, are sometimes called
bolides. So far, however, there's been no report of that object hitting the
ground.

Several people contacted The Herald-Sun to express surprise and relief
Tuesday after reading about the sightings. Jeff Pidgeon, of Durham, who
works as an MCI network engineer in Cary, said he was sitting at his dining
room table talking to his wife Misty and waiting for Monday Night Football
to start.

"She had her back to the window and I saw it over her shoulder," Pidgeon
said. "Because it was so huge, at first, I thought it was a reflection on
the window from a car turning in the cul-de-sac behind me. But I turned
around and didn't see a car. My wife said my eyes looked like saucers when I
saw it. It was the biggest shooting star I have ever seen."

Faye Daniels said she was driving near Falls Lake around 8:45 p.m. Monday
when the object caught her attention.

"It lit up bright green," she said. "I remember looking around for a house
to see if maybe somebody was shooting fireworks. It seemed close. I remember
thinking it might have been something that went down in Falls Lake."

And Tammy Denning, who lives about 10 minutes south of Creedmoor, off
Redwood Road, said she saw what she believed was a UFO the previous night,
Sunday, while smoking outside her home.

"My husband doesn't believe in this stuff," she said, "but I've seen this
several times since 2001. It always comes from the same direction. It's a
big bright ball that kind of hangs there. Then, all of a sudden, it'll
disappear."

"Unfortunately, I missed it myself," UNC's Carney said. He added that the
object probably was a relatively large meteor from the Orionids.

"People can go out some clear night this week around midnight and probably
see 20 to 30 meteors per hour at its peak," the astronomer said. "The
nucleus of a comet is often described as a dirty iceberg. That green glow
people have described might have been metals producing a variety of colors
as they're burning -- copper, nickel, iron, maybe."

Carney said the comet dust is tiny. "But the amount of energy that comes in
from one of those sand grains is about same as a typical car traveling down
the interstate," he added. "It's an awful lot smaller, but moving a heck of
a lot faster. So there's a lot of energy involved."
Received on Wed 22 Oct 2003 03:31:39 PM PDT