I think that space junk is somewhat over represented in widely witnessed
fireballs just because it tends to come in slow and flat... lots of
territory covered, lots of time.
But certainly, it is usually easy to check for and an ordinary meteor is
much more likely. Reporters typically go to some local observatory or
university, and the astronomer interviewed probably knows little more about
meteors than any other educated person- which isn't much.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Langbroek" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "meteorite list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 11:02 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] re: Mystery Surrounds Green Meteor in Australia
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
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