[meteorite-list] New Mexico Fireball

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:01:23 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200709150101.SAA13556_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

Space Weather News for Sept. 14, 2007
http://spaceweather.com

NEW MEXICO FIREBALL: On Sept 13th at approximately 3 o'clock
in the morning MDT, an extremely bright fireball streaked
over New Mexico, "It was terrifying," says eyewitness Susan
K. Burgess. "I was stargazing outside my house near Santa Fe
when the landscape started becoming very bright, as if a
brilliant full moon was quickly rising from the southwest.
The fireball itself [slowly moved] over the house and
disintegrated with a great deal of scatter in the northwest
sky."

At the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, a Sentinel
all-sky video camera captured the fireball in flight:

Based on data from the video, the visual magnitude of the
fireball was -14.6, about four times brighter than a full
Moon!

"The fireball was a pure emerald green, uncomfortably bright
to look at," adds Harald Edens located in the Magdalena
Mountains west of Socorro, NM. "The object was
disintegrating when I saw it, with pieces parallel-tracking
and trailing the fireball. Those smaller pieces had all
different colors--most notably red. I think it has been a
piece of space junk."

Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft not only
photographed the fireball, but also recorded echos of a
distant radio station bouncing off the meteor's ionized trail:
movie. "This fireball turned night into day!" he says.

Stay tuned for updates.
Received on Fri 14 Sep 2007 09:01:23 PM PDT