[meteorite-list] Fireball reports coming in from Michigan

From: MexicoDoug <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:18:35 -0600
Message-ID: <002c01c764f4$61f39660$86ce5ec8_at_0019110394>

"Hello Chris, List, If anyone receives more information regarding this
event, please contact me on or off list. Thanks, Larry"

Listees, Larry, hope we can keep this on-list for all those interested. The
local astronomy club seems to have it covered (GTA = Greater Toronto Area):

Best, Doug

http://durhamregion.typepad.com/astronomy/2007/03/meteor_lights_u.html

Sunday March 11th at about 8 PM -People throughout the GTA witnessed a
fireball moving across our sky towards the west. Police switchboards from
the Regions of Durham, York and Toronto started to receive the calls of the
curious and the concerned. Was it a plane in distress? A meteor shower? A
UFO? Maybe even "space junk" such as a spent rocket booster finally making
it back to Earth after years in orbit.

What people likely saw was the blazing trail of a little rock burning up in
our upper atmosphere as it traversed the sky. Usually with such events,
it's unlikely that anything actually makes it to the ground.

What's happening here? In a word -compression. As the object enters the
atmosphere, it compresses the air in front of it. The air heats up to
extremely high temperatures, consuming the unfortunate object in the
process. You can experience something similar -on a smaller scale of
course- when you pump up a bicycle tire with a manual air pump. The pump
gets hotter and hotter as you compress the air in the tire to a higher
pressure.

Will we find any physical evidence of last night's sky show? Not likely but
if we do, I'll keep you posted.
Received on Mon 12 Mar 2007 06:18:35 PM PDT