[AZ-Observing] Re: Meteor or was it Something Else?

Thanks for the link to the Albuquerque Journal Tom.  The "emailer's" 
description pretty much matches what I saw approximately 8 years ago from 
Victoria, BC.

Angularly speaking, "my space junk" was a slow moving object, was seen over 
a wide geographical area, and broke into diminishingly smaller pieces as it 
burned up.  The tail of glowing pieces was approximately 10 degrees long and 
resembled the burning engine of common fireworks, or, more morbidly, what 
you might expect a disintegrating space shuttle to look like.  Within a 
couple days the authorities announced it was re-entering space junk, 
although I don't recall them ever identifying which particular piece of junk 
it was.  Victoria is maybe 80 miles north of Seattle.

Iridium flares aren't sky crossers, as far as I know, so they're probably 
ruled out.  Moving at 5 degrees per second jives with crossing the sky in 30 
seconds.  It's faster than most satellites as seen in their usual lofty 
orbits, but probably about right for something burning up at a lower 
altitude.  Based on the time reports, you'd think the object took nearly 2 
hours to cross from Seattle to New Mexico.  It probably only takes twice 
that long to fly that distance, so something's fishy there.

That was funny about Dr. Sky though.  With a moniker like that, he can't 
possibly be wrong.

Neville


----Original Message Follows----
From: Tom Polakis <tpolakis@xxxxxxx>
Reply-To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Meteor or was it Something Else?
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 10:40:23 -0400

---- Neville Cole <nevillecole@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 > Did anyone here witness the bright so-called fireball visible over 
Arizona
 > on Sunday night? (I didn't)
 >
 > From the article in the Arizona Republic today, the eyewitnesses talk 
about
 > what sounds like something that's considerably slower moving than any 
meteor
 > I've ever seen or heard of.


A Google News search turns up stories in the Republic and the Albuquerque 
Journal.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1003meteor1003.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1562&Itemid=2


I'd agree with Neville that it's space junk.  The Albuquerque Journal piece 
mentions that it lasted 30 seconds.  Meteors typically move much faster than 
a hand width (5 degrees) per second.   Unless they're right in the line of 
sight, the slowest meteors come and go before non-astronomer types get a 
chance to see them.

Maybe I should stop speculating, though, and leave this matter for Dr. Sky 
to explain to the press.

Tom
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