[meteorite-list] Fireball Over California/Nevada: How Big WasIt?

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:05:56 -0500
Message-ID: <7B94D6BBECD04C399FD9B0DE56D3A083_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Stuart, List,

The "size of a mini-van" suggests an asteroid
with a radius of 3 meters (if spherical). I wouln't
call a six-meter asteroid "huge."

Further, if it was indeed carbonaceous, it would
likely be quite dark and have a low albedo, making
its detection even more difficult.

It may have been detected regardless of what angle
it approached from.


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stuart McDaniel" <actionshooting at carolina.rr.com>
To: "Ron Baalke" <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>; "Meteorite Mailing List"
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fireball Over California/Nevada: How Big
WasIt?


> So my question is.....why didn't anyone detect this obviously huge
> meteoroid in space before entry?
>
>
>
>
> *****************************
> Stuart McDaniel
> Lawndale, NC
> Secr.,
> Cleve. Co. Astronomical Society
>
> IMCA #9052
> Sirius Meteorites
>
> Node35 - Sentinel All Sky
>
> http://spacerocks.weebly.com
>
> *********************************
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron Baalke
> Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 4:40 PM
> To: Meteorite Mailing List
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Fireball Over California/Nevada: How Big Was
> It?
>
>
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-114
>
> Fireball Over California/Nevada: How Big Was It?
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory
> April 24, 2012
>
> A bright ball of light traveling east to west was seen over the skies
> of
> central/northern California Sunday morning, April 22. The former space
> rock-turned-flaming-meteor entered Earth's atmosphere around 8 a.m.
> PDT.
> Reports of the fireball have come in from as far north as Sacramento,
> Calif. and as far east as North Las Vegas, Nev.
>
> Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environments Office at NASA's Marshall
> Space
> Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., estimates the object was about the
> size of a minivan, weighed in at around 154,300 pounds (70 metric
> tons)
> and at the time of disintegration released energy equivalent to a
> 5-kiloton explosion.
>
> "Most meteors you see in the night's sky are the size of tiny stones
> or
> even grains of sand and their trail lasts all of a second or two,"
> said
> Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet
> Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Fireballs you can see
> relatively easily in the daytime and are many times that size -
> anywhere
> from a baseball-sized object to something as big as a minivan."
>
> Elizabeth Silber of the Meteor Group at the Western University of
> Canada, Ontario, estimates the location of its explosion in the upper
> atmosphere above California's Central Valley.
>
> Eyewitnesses of this fireball join a relatively exclusive club. "An
> event of this size might happen about once a year," said Yeomans. "But
> most of them occur over the ocean or an uninhabited area, so getting
> to
> see one is something special."
>
> NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing
> close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The
> Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard,"
> discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and
> establishes
> their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our
> planet. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's
> Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the
> California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
> More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch .
>
> DC Agle 818-393-9011
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
> agle at jpl.nasa.gov
>
> 2012-114
>
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Received on Tue 24 Apr 2012 08:05:56 PM PDT