Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Hi José- There's no doubt that the vast majority of meteors last at most a few seconds. But there is a class of fireballs which are usually seen in the early evening, produced by low eccentricity prograde bodies. When these bodies enter at a shallow angle, they can produce fireballs that are seen for a good fraction of a minute, or even longer. Fireballs like this, while rare, are still more common than reentering space junk (especially large junk like the recent rocket body). So while it's certainly true that reentering space junk is slow compared with the average meteor, it isn't much slower than the average shallow fireball witnessed over a wide area. I think it would be very unusual for space junk to be seen for much longer than a minute by any one observer (although a three minute path is certainly possible, as it is also for a natural meteor). A piece of debris with a three minute incandescent path will be quite high, and not experiencing very high drag forces. It will have a path length of about 1200 km. That is too long for a single observer to see the entire thing. It may burn for three minutes, but few are in a position to see all of it. When I saw the video for the Colorado event, I immediately thought reentry. The low speed was certainly a part of this, but the primary indicator for me was the exact nature of the breakup. Even very fragile meteoroids don't show the same degree of fragmentation this did. That's not surprising, considering that any meteoroid is likely to be much more homogeneous than a 10 meter long collection of sheet metal, pipes, nuts and bolts! It was breaking into hundreds, maybe thousands of individual fragments- something I've never seen in any natural fireball caught on video. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Jose Campos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 3:29 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] Fw: Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Hi Chris, When I say more than a few seconds for fireballs, I do mean less than a minute, as IN COMPARISSON to man made space debris; Of course, there are fireballs that last some 30s or so - I have seen a few of them - the one that you claim to have lasted 45s is most unsual, but certainly it is possible to last this long. Yes, the minimum speed for a meteor is about 11 km/s - that's way these are called slow meteors, - but by far, the vast majority of meteors we see, are much faster, namely in the early morning sky. Luminous trails produced by man made space junk, are notoriously, SLOW moving objects - as compared to the average meteor. The time duration of their visibility is on ther order of a minute at least, more often 2 or 3 minutes - not only seconds (in this instance, by seconds, I mean less than 1 min.). Most visual observers, with some experience, would say that the event seen in the sky in Colorado on the 4th of this month, was made not by meteors, but by space debris - even from a video such as the one shown, running at its normal speed. José Campos PS- Good night to all, on that side of the word - here in Portugal its now 01h15 AM. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Hi Chris, Thanks for your e-mail. I fully agree with what you say. The updated ground path of the re-entering debris of the 2nd satage of the russian Soyuz SL-4 rocket on your site is most interesting. as well as, the video and the picture of this event caught by the camera at Claudbait Observatory.. May I suggest that on the map of the ground path you also plot the position of the Observatory? All the best for 2007. José Campos - Original Message - From: Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 4:03 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Hi José- There's no doubt that the vast majority of meteors last at most a few seconds. But there is a class of fireballs which are usually seen in the early evening, produced by low eccentricity prograde bodies. When these bodies enter at a shallow angle, they can produce fireballs that are seen for a good fraction of a minute, or even longer. Fireballs like this, while rare, are still more common than reentering space junk (especially large junk like the recent rocket body). So while it's certainly true that reentering space junk is slow compared with the average meteor, it isn't much slower than the average shallow fireball witnessed over a wide area. I think it would be very unusual for space junk to be seen for much longer than a minute by any one observer (although a three minute path is certainly possible, as it is also for a natural meteor). A piece of debris with a three minute incandescent path will be quite high, and not experiencing very high drag forces. It will have a path length of about 1200 km. That is too long for a single observer to see the entire thing. It may burn for three minutes, but few are in a position to see all of it. When I saw the video for the Colorado event, I immediately thought reentry. The low speed was certainly a part of this, but the primary indicator for me was the exact nature of the breakup. Even very fragile meteoroids don't show the same degree of fragmentation this did. That's not surprising, considering that any meteoroid is likely to be much more homogeneous than a 10 meter long collection of sheet metal, pipes, nuts and bolts! It was breaking into hundreds, maybe thousands of individual fragments- something I've never seen in any natural fireball caught on video. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Jose Campos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 3:29 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] Fw: Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Hi Chris, When I say more than a few seconds for fireballs, I do mean less than a minute, as IN COMPARISSON to man made space debris; Of course, there are fireballs that last some 30s or so - I have seen a few of them - the one that you claim to have lasted 45s is most unsual, but certainly it is possible to last this long. Yes, the minimum speed for a meteor is about 11 km/s - that's way these are called slow meteors, - but by far, the vast majority of meteors we see, are much faster, namely in the early morning sky. Luminous trails produced by man made space junk, are notoriously, SLOW moving objects - as compared to the average meteor. The time duration of their visibility is on ther order of a minute at least, more often 2 or 3 minutes - not only seconds (in this instance, by seconds, I mean less than 1 min.). Most visual observers, with some experience, would say that the event seen in the sky in Colorado on the 4th of this month, was made not by meteors, but by space debris - even from a video such as the one shown, running at its normal speed. José Campos PS- Good night to all, on that side of the word - here in Portugal its now 01h15 AM. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Hi José- The allsky network cameras are shown on the map as little orange beacons (14 of them). Right above the word Colorado, west of Colorado Springs, there are two cameras that are very close together. Cloudbait is the northernmost one. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Jose Campos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 4:25 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Hi Chris, Thanks for your e-mail. I fully agree with what you say. The updated ground path of the re-entering debris of the 2nd satage of the russian Soyuz SL-4 rocket on your site is most interesting. as well as, the video and the picture of this event caught by the camera at Claudbait Observatory.. May I suggest that on the map of the ground path you also plot the position of the Observatory? All the best for 2007. José Campos __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Hi Gary, By space debris, I meant several pieces of a MAN MADE spacecraft, desintegrating thru the Earth's atmosphere. Sorry about the confusion. As regarding time, a meteor's visibility lasts only a few seconds, whereas for man made space debris, as it travells at a much slower speed, it's burning trail becomes visible for a few minutes. The video shown on CNN is quite spectacular. I have seen a similar event, some 20 yrs ago (?), at night, over the Indian Ocean, when I was walking with friends on the beac front in Durban, South Africa. This event was seen by many people. The next day, it was reported on south african newspapers and TV. The visibility of a meteor, even a -14 mag fireball, (that is as bright as the full moon), will not last longer than a few seconds, at most. José Campos - Original Message - From: Gary K. Foote [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 12:02 AM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado I'm confused by your post. What do you mean by 'space debris'? If the time was too short for space debris and it was also not a meteoroid then what are you suggesting? Befuddled Gary On 4 Jan 2007 at 23:21, Jose Campos wrote: Hi List, I fully agree with Marco Langbroek's comments. It was no meteor. The article written by Laura Bailey (Jan 4 2007) for THE COLORADOAN, mentions that onlookers reported that it could be seen for about 30 seconds. That is too short a time for space debris, unless if it was seen at a low altitude in relation to the horizon, or if it was due to some partial sky obstruction (clouds, trees, buildings). Usually, this kind of display lasts for some 2 to 3 minutes or even slightly longer.. José Campos - Original Message - From: Marco Langbroek [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 5:32 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Dear Ron and List, Thank you Ron and all of the posters on this fall. This is a case where people had better have their geiger counters along. As Ron and others may have found out it may contain some radioactive material. Best, Dirk Ross..Tokyo Not likely you need a geiger counter. It is a normal Soyuz rocket stage. Place, track and time closely coincide with the predicted re-entry of a stage of the Soyuz rocket (06-063B, #29679) used to launch the French COROT space telescope on December 27th from Baikonur. The sighting is only a few minutes later than the nominal predicted decay time, and at the correct geographic location and direction of movement from the last know orbit for this object. The slow movement on the video (assuming the video was real speed) corroborates it was this decay rather than a meteor. - Marco - Dr Marco Langbroek Dutch Meteor Society (DMS) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: http://www.dmsweb.org priv. website: http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek - __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Hi José- Fireballs can certainly be visible for more than a few seconds. This one: http://www.cloudbait.com/science/fireball20061001.html was visible for at least 45 seconds. I've recorded several others that were at least 15 seconds long. People under the central part of the Peekskill path saw it for about 30 seconds. The Grand Teton fireball was about 30 seconds. Tagish Lake produced a fireball at least 15 seconds long. Reentering space debris is not necessarily traveling at a much lower speed than natural meteors. An object decaying from low Earth orbit (which would seem to describe all space junk) has a speed of about 8 km/s, and a slow meteor has a speed of about 11 km/s. Of course, most meteors will be faster (up to 71 km/s), but the famous slow fireballs have very similar characteristics to decaying space junk- low speed and shallow entry angles- and may similarly be seen for many seconds. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Jose Campos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 3:46 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Hi Gary, By space debris, I meant several pieces of a MAN MADE spacecraft, desintegrating thru the Earth's atmosphere. Sorry about the confusion. As regarding time, a meteor's visibility lasts only a few seconds, whereas for man made space debris, as it travells at a much slower speed, it's burning trail becomes visible for a few minutes. The video shown on CNN is quite spectacular. I have seen a similar event, some 20 yrs ago (?), at night, over the Indian Ocean, when I was walking with friends on the beac front in Durban, South Africa. This event was seen by many people. The next day, it was reported on south african newspapers and TV. The visibility of a meteor, even a -14 mag fireball, (that is as bright as the full moon), will not last longer than a few seconds, at most. José Campos __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
The visibility of a meteor, even a -14 mag fireball, (that is as bright as the full moon), will not last longer than a few seconds, at most. This is correct for most meteors. However, some will last a bit longerup into the tens of seconds. The longest lasting one that I'm aware of is the Great Fireball of 1972 over Wyoming and Montana. This one lasted about 106 seconds. I'm trying to recall the longest duration that I've personally observed while recording meteor data in the 1990's. I seem to vaguely recall a duration of between 10 and 15 seconds. George Zay __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Hi List, I fully agree with Marco Langbroek's comments. It was no meteor. The article written by Laura Bailey (Jan 4 2007) for THE COLORADOAN, mentions that onlookers reported that it could be seen for about 30 seconds. That is too short a time for space debris, unless if it was seen at a low altitude in relation to the horizon, or if it was due to some partial sky obstruction (clouds, trees, buildings). Usually, this kind of display lasts for some 2 to 3 minutes or even slightly longer.. José Campos - Original Message - From: Marco Langbroek [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 5:32 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Dear Ron and List, Thank you Ron and all of the posters on this fall. This is a case where people had better have their geiger counters along. As Ron and others may have found out it may contain some radioactive material. Best, Dirk Ross..Tokyo Not likely you need a geiger counter. It is a normal Soyuz rocket stage. Place, track and time closely coincide with the predicted re-entry of a stage of the Soyuz rocket (06-063B, #29679) used to launch the French COROT space telescope on December 27th from Baikonur. The sighting is only a few minutes later than the nominal predicted decay time, and at the correct geographic location and direction of movement from the last know orbit for this object. The slow movement on the video (assuming the video was real speed) corroborates it was this decay rather than a meteor. - Marco - Dr Marco Langbroek Dutch Meteor Society (DMS) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: http://www.dmsweb.org priv. website: http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek - __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
I'm confused by your post. What do you mean by 'space debris'? If the time was too short for space debris and it was also not a meteoroid then what are you suggesting? Befuddled Gary On 4 Jan 2007 at 23:21, Jose Campos wrote: Hi List, I fully agree with Marco Langbroek's comments. It was no meteor. The article written by Laura Bailey (Jan 4 2007) for THE COLORADOAN, mentions that onlookers reported that it could be seen for about 30 seconds. That is too short a time for space debris, unless if it was seen at a low altitude in relation to the horizon, or if it was due to some partial sky obstruction (clouds, trees, buildings). Usually, this kind of display lasts for some 2 to 3 minutes or even slightly longer.. José Campos - Original Message - From: Marco Langbroek [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 5:32 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Dear Ron and List, Thank you Ron and all of the posters on this fall. This is a case where people had better have their geiger counters along. As Ron and others may have found out it may contain some radioactive material. Best, Dirk Ross..Tokyo Not likely you need a geiger counter. It is a normal Soyuz rocket stage. Place, track and time closely coincide with the predicted re-entry of a stage of the Soyuz rocket (06-063B, #29679) used to launch the French COROT space telescope on December 27th from Baikonur. The sighting is only a few minutes later than the nominal predicted decay time, and at the correct geographic location and direction of movement from the last know orbit for this object. The slow movement on the video (assuming the video was real speed) corroborates it was this decay rather than a meteor. - Marco - Dr Marco Langbroek Dutch Meteor Society (DMS) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: http://www.dmsweb.org priv. website: http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek - __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Many people reported seeing the debris for over a minute. From my cameras, I've got an average speed of about 8 km/s, at a nearly constant height of 60 km. That's very consistent with space junk. I've updated my ground path map at http://www.cloudbait.com/science/fireball20070104.html to include witness reports (the small black squares). Not surprisingly, the vast majority of them were between Denver and Colorado Springs, and they were seeing the meteor quite low in the sky. Some reported mountains or clouds blocking the beginning or ending. The witnesses in western Colorado tended to report the event lasting a minute or longer. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Jose Campos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 4:21 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Hi List, I fully agree with Marco Langbroek's comments. It was no meteor. The article written by Laura Bailey (Jan 4 2007) for THE COLORADOAN, mentions that onlookers reported that it could be seen for about 30 seconds. That is too short a time for space debris, unless if it was seen at a low altitude in relation to the horizon, or if it was due to some partial sky obstruction (clouds, trees, buildings). Usually, this kind of display lasts for some 2 to 3 minutes or even slightly longer.. José Campos __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado
Thanks for that link Chris. VERY informative. I've added it to the meteorite- dealers.com Space News page as I suspect your page on this event will last a lot longer than those in the news-sites - plus your accuracy of reporting if FAR above that of the news services. Thank you very much, Gary http://www.meteorite-dealers.com On 4 Jan 2007 at 17:18, Chris Peterson wrote: Many people reported seeing the debris for over a minute. From my cameras, I've got an average speed of about 8 km/s, at a nearly constant height of 60 km. That's very consistent with space junk. I've updated my ground path map at http://www.cloudbait.com/science/fireball20070104.html to include witness reports (the small black squares). Not surprisingly, the vast majority of them were between Denver and Colorado Springs, and they were seeing the meteor quite low in the sky. Some reported mountains or clouds blocking the beginning or ending. The witnesses in western Colorado tended to report the event lasting a minute or longer. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Jose Campos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 4:21 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado Hi List, I fully agree with Marco Langbroek's comments. It was no meteor. The article written by Laura Bailey (Jan 4 2007) for THE COLORADOAN, mentions that onlookers reported that it could be seen for about 30 seconds. That is too short a time for space debris, unless if it was seen at a low altitude in relation to the horizon, or if it was due to some partial sky obstruction (clouds, trees, buildings). Usually, this kind of display lasts for some 2 to 3 minutes or even slightly longer.. José Campos __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
