Showing posts with label Russia Meteor 18JAN2015. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia Meteor 18JAN2015. Show all posts

18 January 2015

Russia Meteor Space Trash? 18JAN2015 Video

Russia Meteor Space Trash Re-entry? 18JAN2015
Breaking Story-  Multiple bodies - Fragmentation.  Delayed 8 minute loud boom.
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Russia Meteor Space Trash Re-entry? 18JAN2015
Image Credit- RT.com
Meteor-like object lights up sky over Russian Far East
Posted to YouTube by RT 301 views
Published on Jan 18, 2015
COURTESY: Konstantin Pivkin http://instagram.com/kostya_talakan/
  The sky in Russia's Far East was lit up by a strange object on Sunday morning, 18JAN2015.. It flew over the city of Blagoveschensk leaving behind a long trail of white light, which reportedly hung in the sky for the next two hours. But the journey was short-lived. After a few seconds the object exploded in a bright flash. Locals claim they witnessed a meteorite, but so far there has been no official information about the celestial phenomena.

Astronomer / Space Trash Expert Notes-
I believe this to have been the re-entry of the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Dragon CRS-5 spacecraft.
I posted a more detailed report to SeeSat-L:
http://satobs.org/seesat/Jan-2015/0122.html
Ted Molczan

Update-
It appears that the re-entry of 15001D / 40373 was seen from Russia's far east Amur Region on Jan 17 21:48 UTC (Jan 18
near 06:48 local time).

The first USSTRATCOM TIP message was issued a couple of hours before re-entry. The second and probably final one was issued a couple of hours after re-entry. It reported the time of decay as 2015 Jan 17 21:46 UTC +/- 7 min., and the location as 52 deg N, 121 deg E.

USSTRATCOM identifies 15001D / 40373 as debris of  Dragon CRS-5; however, I believe it was the Falcon 9 second stage. The Dragon spacecraft jettisons two solar array covers upon reaching orbit, which typically decay within 2 or 3 days of launch. The Falcon stage typically re-enters about a week later. The respective decay dates of objects 15001B / 40371 and 15001C / 40372 were 2015 Jan 13 and Jan 12, consistent with the solar array covers, but USSTRATCOM identified B as the Falcon 9 second stage. The identities of 15001B / 40371 and 15001D / 40373 should be swapped.

I have seen reports of sightings from the following locations:
Blagoveshchensk 50.28 N, 127.54 E
Belogorsk 50.92 N, 128.47 E
Khabarovsk Krai 48.50 N, 135.07 E 45 s duration

So far, I have found the following sources of information on the sightings.
http://vk.com/astro.nomy?w=wall-727032_52634

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV12M3xZopA

RT has a report:
http://rt.com/news/223771-russia-meteorite-far-east/

Ted Molczan
2015 The SECOND Year of "CERTAIN Uncertainty" ™ / Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!