Another type of fall not mentioned, but which I think is certainly a "fall",
is where the meteorite is observed to hit the ground, but no fireball was
witnessed. I know this has happened for daylight falls, and presumably for
evening falls as well. It is probable that most meteorites are not preceded
by particularly impressive fireballs.
Personally I'd consider any meteorite where the fireball was recorded, even
if not directly witnessed, to be a "fall". But I'm a little biased in that
respect. After all, I collect fireballs but not meteorites <g>.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Crawford" <[email protected]>
To: "Meteorite List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2009 2:39 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] When is a fall...?
I read a definition of a fall as being where the meteor is 'usually seen as
a fireball' before it lands and is recovered. Obviously, I thought, it
needs to be seen burning up - that's the very definition of a fall.
I then considered that the definition would strictly be 'observed' to
fall. One could imagine a scenario where an object may not be witnessed by
the human eye, but which were otherwise recorded. *Pribram and *Innisfree
were recorded photographically; Pribram and (I think) Innisfree were also
witnessed by eye, but if they hadn't been I'd still call them falls.
Then I wondered about 2008 TC3. It was observed and projected to impact
earth, the landing area was calculated. Material was recovered. Now if the
KLM pilot hadn't seen the fireball, and if the putative Meteosat image
(*http://tinyurl.com/d4sna5) *hadn't appeared - would this still be
classed as a fall?
When is a fall not a fall? :)
Mark
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