------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IYA 2009 International Year of Astronomy
Astronomers Without Borders Regional Coordinator- Southeast Asia Since 2008
Japan Chapter: Japan Planetary Data- Japan Sky Watch Astronomers Without Borders is dedicated to fostering understanding and goodwill across national and cultural boundaries by creating relationships through the universal appeal of astronomy. Astronomers Without Borders projects promote sharing. Sharing resources. Sharing knowledge. Sharing inspiration. All through a common interest in something basic and universal. Sharing the sky. http://www.astronomerswithoutborders.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Planetary Data Japan- Japan Sky Watch For More Information Contact: Dirk Ross @ drtanukiATgmail.com
Meteorite returns to Arizona UPI Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:03 PM PDT FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., March 24 (UPI) -- A meteorite that was stolen from an Arizona museum decades ago has been returned to the Meteor Crater east of Flagstaff, Ariz., officials said.
Students receive NASA training The Southside Reporter Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:48 PM PDT Teachers and staff members at Neil Armstrong Elementary School took part in a live video conference with NASA officials at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to become authorized borrowers of lunar and meteorite samples.
A man purchased the basket-shaped rock at a yard sale three years ago for $10. ABC 15 Phoenix Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:31 PM PDT It was stolen in 1968, now it is back where it belongs. A Wisconsin resident has returned the "Basket" meteorite to Arizona. The rock began as part of the Canyon Diablo Meteor, which flew 40,000 miles-an-hour.
WI Man Returns Meteorite to Arizona WEAU Eau Claire Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:56 PM PDT A meteorite that crashed into Arizona 50,000 years ago has been missing for 40 years, until now.
Wisconsin man returns meteorite to Arizona WSAW Wausau Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:07 AM PDT A meteorite that crashed into Arizona 50,000 years ago has been missing for 40 years -- until now. A retired General Motors worker from Wisconsin is the reason the 49-pound meteorite has been returned to Meteor Crater in Flagstaff.
Meteorite returns home to Ariz. FOX 11 Tucson Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:00 AM PDT PHOENIX (AP) -- A meteorite that crashed into Arizona 50,000 years ago, but has been missing for 40 years, is back home. The "Basket" meteorite was stolen from Meteor Crater east of Flagstaff in August 1968. Long-lost meteorite comes home to Ariz. The Arizona Republic Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:05 AM PDT In August 1968, an odd-shaped meteorite was stolen from Arizona's Meteor Crater. On Monday, the meteorite found its way home.
Man Returns Meteorite He Got For $10 At Yard Sale WCCO Minneapolis - St. Paul Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:40 AM PDT A meteorite that crashed into Arizona 50,000 years ago, but has been missing for 40 years, is back home.
Meteorite lands back home Arizona Daily Sun Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:38 AM PDTFor the last few years Tom Lynch has been using a 50-pound rock as a counter weight for his grandson's basketball hoop.
'Dino Man' thrills Eliot Elementary students Portsmouth Herald Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:08 AM PDT ELIOT, Maine and#8212; Eighteen energetic first-graders in Andrea Rohde's class sat wide-eyed on the Eliot Elementary School gym floor listening to "Dinoman" and touching 65-million-year-old dinosaur-age relics: horns, claws, teeth, a meteorite, ancient...
Group to hunt meteor pieces The Augusta Chronicle Sat, 21 Mar 2009 01:39 AM PDT AIKEN --- A group of Western meteorite hunters is headed to Augusta, chasing the possibility a meteor hit somewhere in the region early Friday, bringing reports of a loud boom and a fireball in the sky.
Meteorite from Aquilla area sells for $10,000 Austin American-Statesman Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:11 PM PDT Mike Farmer spent about a month searching for pieces of the meteor that blazed a trail through the Central Texas skies and broke apart over southern Hill County and northern McLennan County last month.
Meteor dust: Clues to secrets of life Moldova.org Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:09 AM PDT U.S. space agency scientists say they've discovered meteor dust contains clues to a long-standing mystery: how life works at its most basic, molecular level.We found more support for the idea that biological molecules, like amino acids, created in space and brought to Earth by meteorite impacts help explain why life is left-handed, said Daniel Glavin of the National Aeronautics and Space ...
Molecules From Space May Have Affected Life On Earth Universe Today Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:00 AM PDT A decade ago researchers analyzed amino acids from space, brought to Earth in meteorite which landed in Australia, finding a prevalence of âleft-handedâ amino acids over their âright-handedâ form. Now, a new study of dust from meteorites supports this finding, and offers new clues to a long-standing mystery about how life works on its [...]
Unidentified object from sky hits vehicle in Cottonwood Anderson Valley Post Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:56 AM PDT A meteorite may have been what smashed into the windshield of a Cottonwood couple's sport utility vehicle late last month, destroying much of the dashboard and melting some of the glass.
Meteorite hunter donates rare find 10:47 AM PST on Friday, March 6, 2009 By KGW Staff PORTLAND -- A meteorite hunter from Portland is donating part of a recent find to Portland State University.
You may have seen the video of the fireball captured during a marathon last month near Austin, Texas. When Patrick Thompson heard about it, he decided to spend eight days looking for parts of the meteor and he was successful. After searching on foot an average of 25 miles a day, he ended up finding 14 fragments of the meteorite. For Thompson, it’s a true treasure. “There's something about it, something about putting your hands on a rock and being the first person to touch it,” he said. “It came from space. These things are floating around up there, every time you see a shooting star, you're kind of reminded of the fact that these things are coming to earth, bombarding us all the time.” Scientists said because Thompson’s latest meteorite finds are so fresh, the rocks are especially valuable. Thompson said he plans to sell some of the rocks after donating at least one of them to PSU.
A dog trained to sniff out sewage-scented meteorites may have found evidence that life once existed on Mars, a discovery that could have saved NASA the expense of sending probes. The Dingo-Kelpie mongrel picked out the unpleasant aroma of bacteria in mud from Queensland bacteria that matched fossils of primitive organisms in Martian rock that plunged into Antarctica 13,000 years ago. Known as Tamarind to biophysicist owner Tony Taylor, the Australian dog could have saved NASA the bother of sending probes to the red planet - if only it had sniffed around filth in Moreton Bay sooner. And NASA scientists who examined the potato-sized meteorite discovery, called ALH84001, agree this may well be proof that life really did exist on Mars.
Well-trained Taylor said Tamarind came along on all his field trips, so training him to smell out sediments containing specific bacteria was quite easy. "It smells like sewage and she knows the word 'stinky'." Based at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Sydney, Taylor says he and colleague Professor John Barry have examined 82 different bacteria, retrieved from the area identified by the dog. "When we say life, we're talking about bacteria, single cell primitive life forms, like we have here on Earth. It'd be underground, we'd have to drill down, so these little rovers that are crawling all over the surface would never find it" Tony Taylor,biophysicist. They discovered they contained 11 characteristics also found in the Mars fossils, including a structure other scientists claimed could only be formed in intense heat. "They were a perfect match, absolutely perfect. Eleven features out of 11," said Taylor, whose work, crediting Tamarind, was published on Thursday in the "Journal of Microscopy". "These fossils are four billion years old. They pre-date the fossil record of life here on Earth."
Imaging technique The bacteria-studying duo developed an imaging technique that allowed them to examine the bacteria at a much higher resolution - and they were delighted with the findings. The scientists now believe the combined data warrant a manned mission to Mars to retrieve further samples. "The results indicate very strongly that life was once there and... that life might still be there," Taylor said. "When we say life, we're talking about bacteria, single cell primitive life forms, like we have here on Earth." "It'd be underground, we'd have to drill down, so these little rovers that are crawling all over the surface would never find it." Two US-backed rovers are now exploring the red plant and transmitting unprecedented images of the barren landscape, but may achieve little else.
Tamdakht, Moroc Meteorite Hunting by Philippe Thomas
A meteorite fall occurred near Ouarzazate on December 20th, 2008, specifically around the villages of Tamdakht and Tiguert, located in the mountains northwest of the city. We decided to go there to gather more information on this fall and, eventually, to find some pieces. Departure for Morocco was on Wednesday, February 11th in the afternoon. The road is long, but we arrive in the south of the country on 12 at night, exhausted. Here, a few days of rest are necessary to recover the route and also to enjoy the sun that is so much lacking to us at home. Almost 30 ° C difference ... a pure happiness! We left for Ouarzazate on Monday, February 16th early in the morning. Our Moroccan friend accompanies us, he has toured a lot in the zone of the fall and knows many nomads who live in these mountains. We arrived at the entrance of Ouarzazate in early afternoon and we stop in the first Total gas station to find someone who is waiting for us to guide us to places where stones were found. Our two guides getting into our car and we started. The track which leads in mountains start at the end of a residential area. We see that it is a very used track, it is wide, flat (a real highway) and we can ride rather fast especially in 4x4!... the rest of the story at: http://www.meteoritica.com/tamdakht%20hunting%20trip.html
Meteorite hunters are scouring north McLennan County, frustrating some landowners Thursday, February 26, 2009 By Ken Sury Tribune-Herald staff writer WEST — Meteorite hunters have descended in droves to the countryside surrounding this farming community, searching for the elusive pieces from a fireball that flared across the daytime sky over Central Texas and then broke apart. But while the fireball and its accompanying sonic boom Feb. 15 were spectacular, West residents say they’ve got better things to do than hunt for the thousands of fragments that litter the land and might not even be on their property. Spring planting is a focus for the farmers now. That meteorite hunters from across the country are asking to traipse across their fields looking for stones the size of a pecan or smaller at a crucial time for planting has more than a few farmers and ranchers perturbed. In some cases, people didn’t ask and trespassed. ... continued story, video, and photos: http://www.wacotrib.com/
La Paz (right) directing recovery of the massive Norton County, Kansas meteorite, 1948.
University of New Mexico collection
NORTON COUNTY, Kansas, USA - Witnessed Fall - 18FEB1948 --61 years ago
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After a brilliant fireball and a tremendous noise, a huge shower of stones fell over a large area of Norton County, Kansas, and Furnas County, Nebraska. This meteorite, which fell on 18 February 1948, 16:56hrs, was named Norton County, and classified as an Achondrite, Ca-poor, Aubrite, fragmental breccia. Aubrites are quite rare and this is the largest known in historical times. The main mass weighing more than 1070 kg is the center of the meteorite display at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Norton County is a very historical and scientifically valuable meteorite and almost impossible to obtain as nearly all of the material is in the University of New Mexico collection.
Dr. Alan Rubin, UCLA, has analyzed the West, TX meteorite as an L6 chondrite:
W0, S3, L6 olivine Fa: 24.2±0.2 (n=12)low-Ca pyx Fs20.5±0.7 Wo1.6±0.2 (n=12) kamacite has an average composition of Fe 93.1 Ni 5.8 Co 0.83 (n=4) taenite has an average composition of Fe 69.6 Ni 30.3 Co 0.30 (n=9) Taenite is much more abundant than kamacite. Many plagioclase grains exceed 50 µm in size. Some metal grains have irregular grains of troilite inside them. Metallic Cu is present in metal grains. There are some thin metal- and sulfide-bearing shock veins. The rock exhibits signficant silicate darkening.
The "Ash Creek" (Doug Dawn`s proposed name for the meteorite) meteorite sample was collected by Doug Dawn, Dima, Rob McCafferty, and Sergey and sent to Dr. Rubin for analysis.
The data from Dr. Rubin`s classification analysis will be sent to the Meteorite NOMCOM for approval and a final naming will be approved.
Record timing for meteorite recovery and analysis; congratulations to all that worked on this!!!
..."Now there's actual physical proof that it was a meteor. Amateur astronomer Doug Dawn and his team say they were able to find meteorites. Dawn's team analyzed the video footage shot by News 8 photographer Eddie Garcia. Dawn said there was a lot of information available in the film and it helped with calculations of where the material was coming from. "...
There is indeed a meteorite finding dog! - Hopper the Dog* Here's the story. On Friday Sonny, Steve Arnold and I (Ruben Garcia) drove into the strewnfield bright and early and immediately started knocking on doors to try to gain permission to hunt. Upon walking up to a particular house Sonny spotted a meteorite on the porch (about 70-90 grams) he picked it up, and laid it backdown. "Ruben, did you see that fully crusted meteorite on the porch?" He Said. I couldn't believe it. He was right! Right there on the porch but no one was home...what to do? Since Sonny assured me that he wasn't going to buy meteorites when he could find them I decided to track down the owner and try to buy the specimen. I got the owners work phone number from a neighbor and called. After introducing myself and explaining what I was in town for, I told the owner that there was a meteorite on their porch. "What, you mean that black rock that the dog, Hopper, brought up and dropped on the porch?" "Yes, that one" I said. Needless to say, I drove down and did a nice video interview with the owner holding the space rock and recalling the tale. Written by: Ruben Garcia
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16635-first-tracked-space-rock-recovered-after-impact First tracked space rock recovered after impact-0246 GMT on 7 October-Sudan (Asteroid 2008 TC3) by David Shiga New Scientist February 19, 2009 The discovery of meteorites from an asteroid that exploded over Sudan in October completes an astronomical trifecta. For the first time, scientists have detected a space rock ahead of a collision with Earth, watched it streak through the atmosphere, and then recovered pieces of it. Analysis of the meteorites could shed light on conditions in the early solar system more than 4 billion years ago. When the asteroid, called 2008 TC3, was discovered on 6 October last year, it was just 20 hours away from hitting Earth. Though the warning period was short, it was the first time a space rock had been found before it impacted the planet. Orbital calculations predicted the object would plunge into the atmosphere above Sudan at 0246 GMT on 7 October, and it arrived right ontime. Observations suggested it was no more than 5 metres across, too small to survive intact all the way to the ground and cause damage. The brilliant fireball it made as it descended through the atmosphere was seen far in the distance by the crew of a KLM airliner, and was observed by various satellites, including a weather satellite called Meteosat-8. Now, a team of meteorite hunters has found fragments of the object. The meteorites are a unique group in that they come from an object seen hurtling through space before its plunge into Earth's atmosphere.
Numerous fragments Students from the University of Khartoum, led by Dr Muawia Shaddad, found the first fragments using data provided by NASA to home in onwhere fragments were likely to be found. Scientists involved with the discovery, including Peter Jenniskens ofthe SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, have reportedly submitted a study about the find to a scientific journal, and have not responded to interview requests. But Lindley Johnson, head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program office atthe agency's headquarters in Washington, DC, reported the find on Mondayin Vienna, at a United Nations meeting discussing near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. <http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/en/COPUOS/stsc/2009/index.html>
An image of the first fragment found is included in the slides from Johnson's presentation (pdf) <http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/pdf/pres/stsc2009/tech-25.pdf> (see slide 19). Donald Yeomans, who manages NASA's efforts to find and track NEOs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, confirmed that"quite a few" fragments have been found but declined to discuss them further.
Weak material? Before the fragments were found, meteorite expert Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario in Canada said the asteroid was likely made of relatively weak material, given that 2008 TC3 broke up unusually quickly once it hit the atmosphere, exploding about 37 kilometres above ground. Another object known to have broken up at about this height scattered fragments over Tagish Lake in Canada in 2000. The Tagish Lake meteorites turned out to be made of a very crumbly material, and fall into a class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites, which have been modified little by heat or other processes since the solar system formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. "I would caution making direct compositional comparisons [with the Tagish Lake meteorites], but it does certainly underscore the global weakness of [2008 TC3]," Brown said in comments posted on the JPL website in November. He added that observations of the rock's quick breakup "all but rule out" a composition rich in iron. <http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/2008tc3.html>
Point of origin When the analysis of these rock fragments does come out, what is it likely to tell us? Meteorites in general provide a valuable record of conditions in the early solar system, such as temperature and chemical composition. And the 2008 TC3 meteorites could be especially illuminating because the parent object was observed in space before the breakup, allowing scientists to calculate its former orbit around the Sun. This provides precious information connecting the meteorites to their place of origin in the solar system. For most other meteorites, such calculations involve a lot of guesswork. Meteorites had previously been recovered after about 10 "fireball" events, where parent space rocks were observed streaking through the sky. But in those cases, scientists had to try to reconstruct the object's orbit based on its path through the atmosphere. "It's often very difficult to get from a streak in the sky to what theorbit was," says Allan Treiman of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Tucson, Arizona. "But if they've got its location before it hit the atmosphere, they're far better off - that's really wonderful."
West, Texas Meteorite found by (c) Michael Farmer 2009
I just spoke with Mike Farmer on the telephone and they have found three more meteorites today. He said that the area is mostly farm and pasture land making it not the most idea for hunting conditions.
UNT astronomy workers say they found 2 samples of meteor 03:14 PM CST on Thursday, February 19, 2009 By SARAH PERRY / The Dallas Morning News
Ron DiIulio slept for only an hour last night. The director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas couldn’t help but stay awake and study the pieces of a meteorite he found with a co-worker Wednesday.
MAX FAULKNER/Special Contributor Ron DiIulio (left), director of UNT's planetarium and astronomy lab program, and UNT observatory manager Preston Starr found these fragments, believed to be from a meteor that burned up in the earth's atmosphere earlier this week, in a pasture in West.
DiIulio and Preston Starr, the observatory manager at UNT, discovered the remnants of a meteor spotted shooting across the Texas sky Sunday. They found the two walnut-sized fragments off a road in West, a town about 70 miles south of Dallas. DiIulio has found other meteorites before, but these pieces are special. “To get something from space ... that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he said. “And these are pristine.” Immediately after learning about the sighting, the two men began to pinpoint the possible location with information from witnesses. The pair systematically mapped the locations and narrowed down the spot to somewhere near Fayetteville, about 230 miles south of Dallas.
They guessed wrong. DiIulio said he and Starr wound their way to West and stopped at the Czech Bakery for a snack. A farmer, who noticed their official NASA-UNT outfits, approached them and asked what they were doing. “Are you guys looking for the sonic boom that rattled my walls?” DiIulio recalled the farmer asking. The farmer told the professors they should head southeast of West. DiIulio and Starr spotted the sheriff and a deputy at a gas station near the location provided by the farmer. The deputy owned some land nearby and offered to help them find the meteorite. At 5 p.m., after walking a few minutes down a gravel road, Starr and DiIulio spotted it - a small, charcoal-colored ball. Five minutes later, they found another. They didn’t use any fancy electronics - just a map, truck and their eyes. “Imagine that,” DiIulio said. “A little piece of charcoal sitting on a gravel road right there.” The pair were lucky they found the pieces first, he said. Scientists from Moscow and two men from Tucson were also on the prowl. DiIulio and Starr wrapped the pieces in a Ziploc bag and took them back to UNT, where they are conducting a radioisotope study today. The study will give clues about other matter in space. DiIulio said it was important to find the pieces quickly because they start to lose certain characteristics once they hit the earth’s atmosphere. Alan Rubin, a research geochemist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the meteorite that landed in Texas is among the most common kinds -- an ordinary chondrite. He said his lab had been called on to analyzed a piece of the substance -- not from the chunks that DiIulio and Starr found -- and "it's a real meteorite, not a piece of a satellite." Though meteorites are found all over world, DiIulio considers himself lucky. Mostly what's out there are tiny pieces -- some as small as a grain of sand. “Every once in a while ... you get this,” he said.
DALLAS — Two samples of fresh material the "size of large pecans" from a meteor that alarmed numerous residents when it streaked across the Texas sky on Sunday have been found by two University of North Texas astronomers in a pasture east of the small town of West. "The pieces that we found have beautiful ablation crust. And it's black like charcoal. Underneath this crust the color of the rock is concrete like gray," said Ron DiLulio, director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas in Denton. DiLulio and Preston Starr, UNT's observatory manager, said they found the pieces Wednesday about 5 p.m. after starting their search from Fort Worth at 3 a.m. using calculations from all of the calls they had received. DiLulio said they had just about given up looking and were driving back when a friend called and asked to meet them at a certain intersection. They said that coincided with conversations they had had earlier that day with citizens at a restaurant. "We decided rather than try to get permission from landowners, there would be pieces in a line that would spread out a mile across. We decided to just do the county roads and we just started walking down that road and it's fairly easy to see. It jumped out at us within 15 minutes," DiLulio said. "We came back to where our gut instinct told us," Starr said. He said the McLennan County sheriff and deputies confirmed what citizens had told them. "The sheriff told his deputy to take us out there," DiLulio said. The astronomers placed the samples in ZipLoc bags to keep out the air. They plan to transfer the samples to membrane cases and take them to the university for additional study. People on Sunday reported seeing a fireball streak across the sky and DiLulio said the reason it created such a fireball was because the meteor expanded and broke into pieces. The pair said they were not alone in the search and ran into others including "a commercial meteorite hunter and we wanted to get there so we could have it first for science," DiLulio said. Starr said the pair had been gathering information since they initially learned of the meteor's appearance. "We did a lot of pre-planning. We looked at the angles of what they saw in the sky and we were able to map it all out. We put a plan together and we drove around small country roads. Texas has lots of small farm to market roads," Starr said. DiLulio said he thinks there are larger pieces still to be found. "We feel that there are probably several hundred pieces. What happens when these things fall — they may break apart. We want to find these early and study the primitive material before our atmosphere affects them," DiLulio said He said the pair planned on returning to the areas where they had searched. "Everytime we find one we mark where it is on the map and we can measure how much material actually hit the surface of the earth," DiLulio said. West is about 70 miles south of Dallas. ____ On the Web: University of North Texas, http://www.unt.edu/
Italian Fireball 13FEB09 Photo by: Diego Valeri (c) 2009 The evening of Friday 13 two stations of the Italy center have recorded a large fireball of mag -16/-17!!! ( The hour is in UT ) Possible the fall on the Earth of a meteorite. Moreover in the same timetables have been observed others 5/6 fireball to the north and center Italy. The radiating is in: AR. = 159.4 degree Dec. = 22.2 degree The radiating is in Antihelion (Delta Leonids). Source: Roberto Haver, Italy --- Well, in the evening (2009, Febrary 13th, at 20:03:29±1 U.T.), over CentralItaly,a very bright fireball was detected from Rieti.
In the link, posted by Roberto Haver, you have a fireball frame image:
The apparente magnitude was -16.9±2.7 and its time of transit was 6.2±0.1 s.
High probability of impact to ground. We're computing the possible point of intersection with Earth, from video records. Source and Photo Credits: Diego Valeri
Other recent events were 13Feb09--Kentucky, USA Austin, Texas 11:20CST 15FEB09
Fiery debris seen in Texas skies not from satellite collision, officials say11:20 PM CST on Sunday, February 15, 2009 By RUDOLPH BUSH / The Dallas Morning News
Fiery debris burned through the Texas sky Sunday morning, alarming some and enchanting others but resulting in no apparent injury or damage. Video from Dallas to Austin and beyond, sightings were reported of a red and orange fireball with a small black center speeding toward Earth before burning out in a trail of lingering white smoke. Roland Herwig, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration’s southwest division, said the fireball was probably superheated debris from a broken satellite falling to Earth.The FAA could not directly link the debris to the reported collision last week of Russian and U.S. communications satellites, however. “It’s yet to be proved it’s those satellites,” Herwig said. However, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command said the fireball spotted in the Texas skies Sunday was unrelated to the satellite collision. Air Force Major Regina Winchester said that Joint Space Operations Center at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base has been monitoring the debris from the collision, and that could not have caused the dramatic sight. She also said the fireball was not related to the estimated 18,000 man-made objects that the center also monitors. “There was no predicted re-entry,” Winchester said about the objects in Earth’s orbit.She said it could possibly have been a natural phenomenon such as a meteorite. It’s unclear exactly how many pieces of debris tumbled toward Texas or whether any more are on the way.The potential danger from debris did prompt the FAA to warn pilots nationwide to be aware of the hazard and to immediately report any sightings. State emergency management officials and local law enforcement agencies also were on alert across much of Texas. Based on reports of a fireball near Waco, local law enforcement officers searched for debris but found nothing, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman said. Though no one could pinpoint where the debris fell or if it even remained intact through the burnout, the fireball left an impression on those who saw it. They say it burned anywhere from a few seconds to nearly a minute. And in some areas, particularly in East Texas, there were reports of a sonic boom. While it may not be clear for some time what fell from the sky, it seemed to be a singular event.Most sightings in Texas were reported about 11 a.m. Some people thought it was a meteor. Others thought perhaps it was a plane crashing. Doug Schmidt of Richardson was driving south on Central Expressway near the Bush Turnpike when he saw a flash of light in the sky. “It was like a ball of flame with a tail. It looked like a meteor,” he said. “There was flame and then a flash and smoke trailing it. I said ‘Wow, look at that.’ ”Farther south, in Ovilla, Chris Weaver said he stepped outside and just by chance looked south. That’s when he saw a flash of orange moving fast in the sky before burning into a streak of white smoke. “If you were looking up at the southern sky, you couldn’t miss it,” he said. There have been scattered reports across the country of debris falling to Earth since the Russian and U.S. satellites collided Tuesday about 500 miles above Earth. The collision occurred over Siberia and sheared thousands of shards of debris through Earth’s orbit.Pieces of that debris will continue to float through orbit for thousands of years or more, while other pieces will at times fall to Earth, probably likely burning up as they pass through the atmosphere, experts say.
Staff writer Jeff Mosier and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Limestone County sheriff's office reported contact from someone who claimed to have a picture of the fireball and a smoke trail and a Plano,Texas, police cruiser may have capture images from a dashboard camera.
What must be sonic booms were reported in Hill and Navarro counties, south of Dallas, Texas. Two towns named in one TV story (a Fox station in the Dallas, Texas, area) where sonic booms were heard were Hubbard and Penelope.
One private report I've seen mentions what I guess was a smoke trail that lasted about ten minutes. That report said the fireball was visible for about eight seconds and that it was going south to north when seen to the east of Austin. Another report from people who apparently were in a car says they saw going NNE while they were traveling northeast.
This was a significant fireball, and I hope another video was made from somewhere. I saw a mention that a police-car dashboard camera may have captured it. This was at 11:00 AM local time -- broad daylight. By the way, online reports now cite the FAA and STRATCOM as saying it was a nature event completely unrelated to the collision of the satellites. I would tend to thank that this might have been detected by a DSP satellite, but if so we might never hear about it.
Source: Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA
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Other Report:
Astronomer Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office is stating that this event was asteroid of about 1 meter, 20 Km/s.
Source: Space weather.
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UPDATE 17FEB09
Two local TV weather blogs have radar images from 11:03 AM (local, 17:03 UTC) Sunday that show two echoes, one in southern Hill County near Hubbard and another, larger one in the northern corner of McLennan County (Waco), just north of the small town of West and south of the small town of Abbott in Hill County.
They both agree that in one pair of images from Fort Worth radar the right-hand or eastern echo is higher in the atmosphere than the larger one to its left. They say that the one of the left was at about 4,000 feet and the one one the right at about 7,000 feet above the ground. I assume these are echoes of a smoke or debris trail, but maybe they could be plasma (?).
I don't know why there are two separate echoes. I believe that weather radars rotate once per minute. In the KVUE-24 blog, there are two pairs of images, each from a different radar center, and the altitudes of the echoes are given different altitudes for the Granger radar than for the radar from Fort Worth.
However, in this one it appears that the blogger or his source has mis-stated (reversed) the altitudes of the echoes in the second pair of images (from Granger radar).
Now, here is a second-hand report from an eyewitness in Hearne, Robertson County, Texas, who reports that the fireball went near the zenith, lasted about 10 seconds, and lit up the ground in broad daylight: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Feb-2009/0354.html
From Hearne to West in McLennan County yields a more or less SSE to NNW track, and the two radar echoes seem to have it descending as it went in that direction. I've read one report in which the eyewitness says she saw five streaks. Another story on one of those websites says that so many 911 calls were received in Williamson County (immediately north of Austin) that they sent out a helicopter to search for a fallen aircraft. It would be very nice, if this was detected by DSP satellite, if they would report it as has been done in the past (several years ago).
Debris Spews Into Space in Collision of Satellites
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: February 11, 2009
For decades, space experts have warned of orbits around the planet growing so crowded that two satellites might one day slam into one another, producing swarms of treacherous debris. It happened Tuesday. And the whirling fragments could pose a threat to the International Space Station, orbiting 215 miles up with three astronauts onboard, though officials said the risk was now small. “This is a first, unfortunately,” Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said of the collision. It happened some 490 miles above northern Siberia, at around noon Eastern time. Two communications satellites — one Russian, one American — cracked up in silent destruction. In the aftermath, military radars on the ground tracked large amounts of debris going into higher and lower orbits. “Nothing to this extent” has ever happened before, Mr. Johnson said. “We’ve had three other accidental collisions between what we call catalog objects, but theywere all much smaller than this,” the objects always very small and moderate insize.The communication satellites, he added, “are two relatively big objects. ”The American satellite was an Iridium, one of a constellation of 66 space craft. Liz DeCastro, corporate communications director of Iridium Satellite, based in Bethesda, Md., said that the satellite weighed about 1,200 pounds and that itsbody was more than 12 feet long, not including large solar arrays.In a statement, the company said that it had “lost an operational satellite” on Tuesday, apparently after it collided with “a nonoperational” Russian satellite. “Although this event has minimal impact on Iridium’s service,” the statement added, “the company is taking immediate action to address the loss. ” The company’s hand-held phones can be used anywhere around the globe to give users voice and data communications. Mr. Johnson said the Russian satellite was presumably nonfunctional. Officials at the Russian Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment. Mr. Johnson said the United States military’s tracking radars had yet to determine the number of detectable fragments. “It’s going to take a while,” he said. “It’s very, very difficult to discriminate all those objects when they’re really close together. And so over the next couple of days we’ll have a much better understanding.”At a minimum, Mr. Johnson added, “I think we’re talking many, many dozens, if not hundreds.” The debris could threaten the space station and its astronaut crew, he said. “There are actually debris from this event which we believe are going through space station altitude already,” he said. The risk to the station, Mr. Johnson added, “is going to be very, very small.” In the worst case, he said, “We’ll just dodge them if we have to. It’s the small things you can’t see that are the ones that can do you harm. ”In Houston, International Space Station controllers have often adjusted its orbit to get out of the way of speeding space debris, which can move so incredibly fast that even small pieces pack a destructive wallop. John Yembrick, a NASA spokesman in Washington, said the agency now judged therisk of collision with the speeding fragments to be “very small.” The threat, headded, is defined and acceptable. Mr. Johnson, who works at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said the new swarms of whirling debris might also eventually pose a threat to other satellites in an orbital chain reaction. “What we’re doing now is trying to quantify that risk,” he said. “That’s a workin progress. It’s only been 24 hours. We put first things first,” meaning the station and preparing for the next shuttle mission.
