[meteorite-list] Meteor Reported in Australia

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Jun 30 15:07:11 2004
Message-ID: <DIIE.0000001F00002424_at_paulinet.de>

> ... they saw a large, fiery object zigzagging
> through the sky at about 5:30pm yesterday.

> Zig-zagging = tumbling space junk?

> comes down to what the eyewitness meant by "zig zagging"

> if it rapidly changed direction ... a large, tumbling, very-low-
> density-by-comparison chunk of expended rocket stage ...


Hello again,

As it was about 5:30 p.m., the sun was already low on the horizon.
This might support Marc D. Fries's assumption that it was space
junk - maybe something metallic that reflected the sunlight at more
or less regular intervals while it was tumbling into and out of the
incident sunlight. This tumbling motion may have led to the illusion
that it was "zigzagging".

Cheers,

Bernd
Received on Wed 30 Jun 2004 03:07:04 PM PDT