[meteorite-list] MISSOURI, ILLINOIS FIREBALL ALSO SEEN IN KANSAS, MINNESOTA

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 04:10:24 -0600
Message-ID: <010601c749d7$04f6d4f0$28e38c46_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, List,


    We now have reports from all or parts of Missouri,
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, and Minnesota
of the Superbowl Meteor (3rd Quarter)!
    Here's the Kansas report (below). Interesting that it
contains accounts of rumbling and popping noises when
the object being described is likely 400 miles or more away!
It must be an instance of the much-argued-about indirect
generation of meteor sounds, electrophonically:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast26nov_1.htm
    The reports seem to span about 1200 kilometers
which my rusty trigonometry tells me must mean that
the object "lit up" at a minimum of 42 miles up, probably
at 50+ miles up. It must have been big, or steep, or fast,
or all three in some degree.
    I'm beginning to suspect it was a big one. We have two
factors that "inhibit" the likely number of observations:
1.) very cold weather, and 2.) the distraction of the Superbowl!
Yet, there seem to be no shortages of reports. It was even
called a "flood" of reports in the St. Louis area.

Sterling K. Webb

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/16630902.htm

Aerial sight was a meteor
One mystery remains . where did the falling object end up?
By KEVIN MURPHY
The Kansas City Star
    That dazzling object seen falling from the sky
over Missouri, Kansas and other Midwestern states
Sunday evening was a meteor, though where it
ended up is uncertain, experts said.
    Many people reported seeing the round, orange
object or hearing a thunderlike sound, some of them
while watching the Super Bowl on TV.
    Astronomers and space buffs said Monday the
description was consistent with either a meteor or
debris that sometimes falls to Earth from old spacecraft.
    The North American Aerospace Defense Command,
however, determined Monday that the object was not
man-made but rather a meteor, spokesman Michael
Kucharek said. The command monitors the re-entry
of man-made debris.
    People from Kansas to Minnesota to Indiana
saw the object. Locally, the time of the reports
varied from shortly after 7 p.m. to closer to 8 p.m.,
indicating there may have been more than one.
    Tom Pisciotta of Kansas City said he was
driving home on the Kansas Turnpike south
of Emporia when he saw a large orange fireball
fall from the sky and disappear over the horizon
to the northeast. It had a tinge of green, he said.
    Patty Brasell was heading home early from
a Super Bowl party at 151st Street and Mission
Road in Leawood when she and a friend also
saw the falling round, orange object with a bright
white tail.
    "It was an incredible sight and really wonderful,"
Brasell said.
    Several people in the Kearney and Liberty areas
said they heard periodic popping and rumbling
sounds coming from outside.
    "I thought it was a neighbor shooting off fireworks,"
said Richard Specker of Kearney. Others thought
the sound was an explosion.
    Russ Bixby of Leavenworth County was not
far from home when he saw the meteor fall and
then disappear with a flash, as if it had hit ground.
"It was one of the more impressive things I have
ever seen," Bixby said.
    Randy Korotev, research associate professor
of Earth and planetary science at Washington
University in St. Louis, said a flash doesn't mean
a meteor landed. Meteors can flash while bursting
apart in the sky, he said.
    The rumbling sounds people heard, he said,
were probably sonic booms.
    Meteors that reach the Earth are usually never
found because the Earth is covered mostly by
water and undeveloped land.
    Steve Arnold, noted for finding a pallasite
meteorite in Kansas in 2005, said pinpointing
where a meteorite lands is very difficult.
    "These things will burn out 12 miles or so
above the Earth," Arnold said. "If someone
is in Emporia and it looks like it disappears
over the horizon, it could literally be in Illinois.
It's an optical illusion that it looks super near.
It sounds like you guys got a light show a
dozen other states got."
Received on Tue 06 Feb 2007 05:10:24 AM PST