[meteorite-list] Students Scan Skies For Great Balls Of Fire

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:07:01 2004
Message-ID: <200210171628.JAA22905_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_1467607,00.html

Students scan skies for great balls of fire

Back-to-back meteors creating a thrill for amateur astronomers

By Jim Erickson
Rocky Mountain News
October 9, 2002

High school science students across Colorado readied rooftop cameras on
Tuesday, hoping to capture video images if another fireball streaks the
night skies this week.

A bright, multicolored fireball was seen in six states Sunday night. Two
more streaking space rocks were reported in Colorado Monday night -
one at 7:18 p.m. and another about 9 p.m., said physicist Chris L. Peterson,
a member of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science meteorite investigation
team.

"I'm going to be out there, and my advice to anybody interested in watching
meteors is to keep an eye on the sky," said Peterson, owner and operator
of the Cloudbait Observatory west of Colorado Springs.

In collaboration with schools across the state, the Denver museum is
establishing a network of "all-sky cameras" to search for meteors nightly.
One goal is to observe fireballs with several cameras simultaneously so
researchers can pinpoint where meteorites hit the ground, Peterson said.

About 10 of the video cameras have been delivered to Colorado schools, and
three or four of them have been operational for several months, he said.
Peterson contacted science teachers Tuesday and urged them to get the other
cameras up and running.

"I'm hoping that at least six or seven are running tonight and that all of
them will be generating data by the end of this week or next week," he said
Tuesday.

Peterson's observatory and the Denver museum have received more than 600
witness reports about Sunday night's fireball, said Jack Murphy, the museum's
curator of geology.

Researchers used the reports to determine that Sunday's fireball probably
exploded roughly 10 miles above western Colorado, near the Utah border north
of Grand Junction and south of Rangely.

Sunday's fireball may have been created by a rock as small as a baseball or
a golf ball, he said.

Murphy said the recent fireballs are unrelated to the Draconid meteor shower,
an annual - and usually unimpressive - sky show that peaks tonight.

Draconid meteors usually appear to come from the constellation Draco, which is
currently high in the sky after sunset.

But Peterson said all three of the recent fireballs appeared to move parallel
to the ground, rather than streaking down from high in the sky.

"That implies that the fireballs are not associated with the meteor shower,"
said University of Arizona meteorite expert David A. Kring. "The Draconids
have also been, as of late, a fairly weak meteor shower.

"So I would be surprised if it is part of that shower."
Received on Thu 17 Oct 2002 12:28:33 PM PDT