[meteorite-list] Re: (meteorobs) Possibly 3 fireballs over Europe on 6-7 April

From: Rob McNaught <rmn_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:50:25 2004
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.93.1020409093609.28460B-100000_at_aaocbnu1.aao.gov.au>

> Note the seeming regularity of approx. 4 hours inbetween each appearance.
> One could perhaps think of fragments of some fragmenting satellite or rocket
> booster re-entering for an extended period along its orbit (this is just my
> suggestion), although Alan Pickup's Decay Watch page does not give a clear
> candidate.

A satellite whose perigee has dropped sufficiently to produce a fireball
at each orbit, is likely very eccentric and will have a pretty fixed
latitude of perigee. Thus, the fireball would tend to be seen further east
by the time difference between perigees. Thus, if the orbital period were
about 4 hours (implying a very eccentric orbit if perigee is around 100km),
each fireball would occur 4 hours (60 degrees) further east on each orbit.

Cheers, Rob
Received on Mon 08 Apr 2002 07:41:59 PM PDT