[meteorite-list] August 24th fireball over Canada

From: GeoZay at aol.com <GeoZay_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:07:49 EDT
Message-ID: <bc0.5df7cff9.37c895f5_at_aol.com>

>>I've been following eyewitness reports of a fireball that was seen at
around
9:00pm on August 24th over Canada. I made a blog post about it the next
morning, where I compiled 25 eyewitness reports from Twitter users:<<

I read these reports and this is what I've initially come up with...

I get the impression that there is a chance for a meteorite to have been
dropped by this fireball. This is solely based on one person saying they
heard a "bang" (sonic boom I presume). Another person said that it lasted for
about 2 seconds...so this eliminates a satellite. Another person said that
it traveled very fast across the sky. Also eliminating a satellite.
Traveling very fast across the sky causes me to interpret this as a fireball of
cometary origin...not likely to drop meteorites if this is the case. One
person said it was only 20 yards away from them and another said it was about
300 yards away. The question that comes to my mind for them is "Why didn't
you pick up the meteorite?" only being 20 yards away. I assume they are
referring to being able to see it only because it was incandescent. I assume
this to be the case...then the question comes to mind as to how big it must
have been to be incandescent while it's only about 20 yards above the earth.
Roughly 10 tons in weight traveling at least 2 or 3 miles per second. Now
I'm thinking, "How did they survive?" :O)
George Zay
Received on Thu 27 Aug 2009 10:07:49 PM PDT