[meteorite-list] New Zealand Meteor Puts on Colorful Show

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jun 28 00:49:11 2004
Message-ID: <200406280442.VAA19425_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2954203a10,00.html

Meteor turns on colourful show
www.stuff.co.nz
June 28, 2004

A meteor streaked across the southern sky in a dazzling blaze of colour
on Saturday night.

At least four people in Otago and Canterbury reported seeing the meteor
just after 9pm, describing it as a sudden flash of colour which lit up
the sky, the resident superintendent at Canterbury University's Mt John
Observatory, Alan Gilmore, said.

The meteor was reported from as far as Dunedin and Timaru, Twizel and
Rangiora, but it was likely to have been "at least" 200km to 300km west
of the South Island's east coast, he said.

"It was obviously bright. . .It was multicoloured too. It sounds like it
put on quite a display of colours."

One witness said the streak, which lasted two or three seconds, "lit up
the clouds" in a flash of light.

Based on the reports Mr Gilmore estimated the meteor was between 70km
and 100km above earth, travelling about 10 kilometres per second and as
large as a basketball.

While bright ones were rarely seen, meteors ? "random lumps of rock or
metal" which burn up in the atmosphere, throwing off colour and light ?
were common phenomena, he said.

Earlier this month a mysterious explosion heard over Hawke's Bay was
reported to have been a fist-sized fragment of asteroid entering the
atmosphere.

Two weeks ago a 4.5 billion year old meteorite crashed through the roof
of an Auckland home, after an estimated journey of 700 million kilometres.

A diner at Christchurch's Gondola Restaurant, Peter Boyd, said he was
making a call outside when the blazing space rock came "scarily close".

He said it was hard to tell which direction it had come from.

"It changed colour as it came down," he said.

Dave Howell, a Timaru commercial pilot, was sitting in his spa pool
gazing at the sky when he saw a fiery object falling vertically in the
west, directly in front of him.

Because it went behind his roofline he did not see a burst, but its
reflection lit up the hills and clouds.

People driving near Twizel reported to the Mount John Observatory that
the meteor had remarkable colours, at one time like an emerald teardrop.

Ollie Scheupbach and his friend Gary McFarlane spotted a bright light in
the sky while fishing off Port Chalmers, Dunedin, about 9pm on Saturday.

The light headed from east to west at high speed.

"It was a blue-white, hard-out light. It began spiralling and a little
chunk broke off the side. Then it disappeared," Mr Scheupbach said.
Received on Mon 28 Jun 2004 12:42:22 AM PDT