[meteorite-list] Bright Meteor, Sonic Booms Over Chicago

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Aug 17 14:01:35 2004
Message-ID: <200408171801.LAA11060_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northshore/chi-0408170289aug17,1,2934218.story

Sky puts on a loud light show
Blue-green glow and booming noises are thought to be from a meteor

By M. Daniel Gibbard
Chicago Tribune
August 17, 2004

An object believed to be a meteor brought a fireworks show to the area
early Monday, lighting the night and causing sonic booms that had some
people marveling over the wonders of nature and others scrambling to
call 911.

The bright lights and noise arrived just after 1 a.m. and were
especially prominent in the west and northwest parts of Chicago and the
suburbs, police said.

Meteor showers are common, especially during the annual Perseid showers
this month, but this was different, experts said.

"Any time you hear a meteor, it's rare because that typically means the
meteor didn't disintegrate until it got close to the ground," said Bart
Benjamin, director of the Cernan Earth and Space Center at Triton
College in River Grove. "It has to penetrate very deeply into the
atmosphere."

In Buffalo Grove, Gary Franchi Jr., 27, was hanging out with friends in
his back yard in the 100 block of Forest Place when something streaked
across the sky, bathing everything in blue-green light.

"I've seen shooting stars before, but this was something else," Franchi
said. "It was amazing. It lit up the entire back yard."

The fireball broke into three pieces and flamed out, he said. Shortly
afterward, there were several loud booms.

"It was distinct. It was very deep, like a bass," he said.

Don Kunde of Northbrook was stargazing in his back yard when he saw it.

"This thing was huge. I thought it was a plane on fire for a second," he
said. "It was hundreds of times the size of a shooting star."

The sound and light brought calls to 911, said Penny Mateck, a
spokeswoman for Cook County sheriff's police.

Calls came from Leyden, Norwood and Elk Grove Townships, she said.

Norridge police also received calls, said Chief Charles Ghiloni.

"We responded with squad cars and ambulances, but there was nothing
located," Ghiloni said.

Monday's meteor event was no match for one that hit the south suburbs in
March 2003, but it is relatively rare to have two so visible incidents
in a short period of time, said Mark Hammergren, an astronomer at the
Adler Planetarium.

"From any one location you might expect something this bright every few
years, maybe every five or 10 years," he said.

In the 2003 incident, the sky blazed with light seen from Wisconsin to
Ohio when a large meteor hit the atmosphere and exploded.

Chunks of space rock rained down on Park Forest and Olympia Fields,
knocking holes in roofs and leaving chunks of ancient debris for
collectors to pick up. Some of the meteorites weighed several pounds,
and one is on display at the planetarium.

Those finds, too, are rare, Hammergren said, and it could be why
astronomers have not heard any reports of specimens this time.

"Most often, the object coming in burns up," he said.

Also, from the reports the planetarium received of the meteor's
position, it is quite possible that any rock that survived would have
ended up in Lake Michigan, he said.

Without physical evidence, it can be hard to tell exactly what people
saw, but astronomers have received numerous calls and e-mails about
lights and noise in the early morning, so they are fairly certain it was
a meteor, he said.

The reports of loud noises also point toward the heavens.

"If there were sonic booms, that's a good sign there were meteorites
dropped," Hammergren said.

There is also the chance that the object was not a rock but a piece of
space junk, Benjamin said.

"[We have had] no reports of anything we know of falling to the ground,
but there's lots of pieces of spacecraft up there, and not all of them
are American," he said.

In Waukegan, authorities had a more earthly explanation for some bright
lights residents reported overnight.

"We think it has something to do with the Batman movie that's being
filmed downtown," said Cmdr. Dan Greathouse.


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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0408170147aug17,1,7163845.column?coll=chi-news-hed

Fiery meteor streaks across predawn Monday sky here
Tom Skilling, WGN-TV
Chicago Tribune
August 17, 2004

They're called bolides--flaming meteors that race across the sky at
tremendous speed and explode. They aren't terribly common. Yet, such a
meteor caught the attention of many around 1 a.m. Monday as it streaked
above the Chicago area, initiating a sonic boom. The bolide was
observed by an air traffic controller at O'Hare and by the pilots of
incoming aircraft, according to FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.
Ground-based observers called police in Park Ridge, Norridge and
Chicago to report the event. Area astronomers suggested the fiery
meteor may have been part of the annual Perseids display, which
peaked a week ago. But, it may also have been a piece of earthbound
space junk or a "sporadic"--a single isolated meteor--added astronomer
Dan Joyce, who says bolides can travel at speeds up to 150,000 m.p.h.
50-60 miles above earth, but slow and heat up as they enter the denser
lower atmosphere.
Received on Tue 17 Aug 2004 02:01:25 PM PDT