> Astronomers are uncertain whether the object was a piece of space junk > or a meteorite, however Jim Barclay from the Maidenwell Observatory > suspects it was part of a satellite or some rocket casing. > > "The description that I received from phone calls was that it was of a > greeny blue colour which typically suggests something metallic," Mr > Barclay said. > > "Over 20,000 pieces of space junk are currently hurtling around the > earth and they have to come back down. If this had landed on someone's > house though it could have killed someone," he said.
I don't understand why space junk, rather than a meteoric fireball, is almost always being picked out as the most likely explanation by these observatory spokesmen whenever a bright fireball has been sighted. The point is that space junk decays are relatively rare compared to meteoric fireballs - so they are picking the least likely option.
Moreover, these commenters do not seem to be aware that you can actually *check* whether something is a space junk decay or not. That stuff is being tracked! Virtually everything larger than a football in Low Earth Orbit has been catalogued.
In this case there is no reason at all to consider a space junk decay, not in the observation itself (the colour argument is nonsense), nor when checking pertinent sources for space junk decays.
- Marco ----- Dr Marco Langbroek Dutch Meteor Society (DMS) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] private website http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek DMS website http://www.dmsweb.org ----- ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
