[meteorite-list] re: Satellite Reentry Witness 4
From: GeoZay_at_aol.com <GeoZay_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jun 9 12:59:09 2006 Message-ID: <4b3.1aa863b.31ba63bf_at_aol.com> >>The object was already incandescant when it caught my eye. I think perhaps I caught the last moments of the display, the breakup etc.<< Then this would explain a short path for a satellite. The one last thing that bothers me is the portion you did see along the horizon and it's velocity. In that location, it seems to be going too fast for a satellite. Here's what I mean. I just happened to notice yesterday, a high up and distant airliner producing contrails close to 20 degrees above the horizon and traveling pretty much parallel to the horizon. It was crawling along. I marked off about 20 degrees with my fists and counted 40 seconds and it still not quite reached the 20 degree mark. Still in this case, we are essentially comparing apples with oranges. So I tried another thought process and considered what we definitely know...that is, 1) the object traveled about 20 degrees. 2) It was traveling about 20 degrees above and parallel to the horizon. 3) The time it took to traverse this 20 degrees was 20 seconds. These numbers should make it easy to get in the ballpark where I can say to myself, " What is most likely...a meteor or satellite?" At that location, we end up with a velocity of about 1 degree per second...seemingly in the realm of a satellite...if it occurred in the zenith. We know the object was traveling very far off and the distance traveled would appear much shorter than if it had occurred in the zenith. It would be like standing between two railroad tracks and following it with your eyes to the horizon. Near the horizon the tracks will appear to have almost converged. Now if I looked at the converging tracks near the horizon and a glowing rock was somehow fired from one track to the other, the distance covered will appear very short. Whereas if this same rock was fired from one track to the other at my feet, it will appear many times longer...I estimate at least 3 to 6 times longer. So lets say if the glowing rock between the two tracks near the horizon took 20 seconds to traverse the distance, it will also take 20 seconds for the same rock to pass between the two tracks at my feet. The time for it appeared lit up, will essentially be the same at both locations. So using my estimate of the path length at my feet to be 3 to 6 times than that near the horizon, I come up with an estimated distance traveled of about 60 to 120 degrees...or 3 to 6 degrees per second. I believe more in the realm of a meteor. Some of the initial estimates may be off and thus throw any accuracy towards either a satellite or a meteor. But my hunch still wants to lean towards your object being more likely that of a meteor than a satellite. But I guess we will never know. George Zay -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/attachments/20060609/2e9a1dac/attachment.html Received on Fri 09 Jun 2006 01:40:15 AM PDT |
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