[meteorite-list] FW: NEW YORK FIREBALL / Acknowledgement & Gratitude

From: Fries, Marc D <marc.d.fries_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:29:40 -0700
Message-ID: <C5DC7024.64D1%Marc.D.Fries_at_jpl.nasa.gov>

I?m flattered; thank you.

For those of y?all who?ve asked me about the Westchester fall, I am still
working through some ambiguity in the data. I will send an image to those
who already asked - anyone else can email me off-list and I?m happy to share
the radar image from that meteor. Its location and timing are unfortunate ?
two radars other than the Long Island one collected data right up to the
meteor location but didn?t quite produce a signal. The Long Island radar
also just missed the falling debris with its first pass, and only caught the
tail end with the second pass ten minutes later. It?s pretty, but nothing
like the West data.

Cheers,
MDF


On 3/10/09 3:07 PM, "Darryl Pitt" <darryl at dof3.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> Folks,
>
> Before I ramp into an update of the Westchester, New York fireball,
> special kudos are due list member Marc Fries of the Jet Propulsion
> Laboratory along with his meteorologist brother.
>
> As you may recall, Doppler radar revealed the debris cloud created by
> the atmospheric break-up of the space shuttle Columbia. The
> appearance of Doppler radar returns provided Marc and his brother the
> idea to take a look at such data in the search for meteorites. For
> years Marc had been waiting to test his hypothesis, and the West,
> Texas fall provided exactly what he was looking for: clear sky, a
> radar return from two different radars and recovered stones. (It
> bears noting that Mike Farmer and Robert Ward both informed me that
> when they saw the Doppler image of the West debris cloud---which they
> likened to looking like a hail storm---they couldn't get to West,
> Texas quickly enough.)
>
> NEW YORK FIREBALL
>
> This past Friday evening Liz Holland witnessed the descent of a
> fireball from her Mt. Kisco (northern Westchester County) home---an
> hour or so North of New York City. After having spoken with Liz at
> length, it was clear she had seen a bolide---and it wasn't arcing
> across the sky but appeared to be coming somewhat towards her. Around
> the same time, sonic phenomena consistent with the sonic boom of a
> meteoroid breaking the sound barrier were heard throughout eastern
> Westchester County. Upon news of the same, my wife and I called
> numerous police stations near and far and failed to make much
> headway. Another piece to the puzzle was needed. Marc produced a
> Doppler return taken about the same time as the aforementioned visual
> and sonic phenomena which revealed a debris cloud over Long Island
> Sound. He is currently working with his brother gathering and
> analyzing further data. I've helped put the New York media on alert
> and hopefully something, somewhere will turn up. It's currently
> unclear what portion of this event has met a watery end.
>
> Fries Brothers, thank you for your assistance.
>
>
> Darryl
>
>
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> ------ End of Forwarded Message
Received on Tue 10 Mar 2009 10:29:40 PM PDT