[meteorite-list] Bright Flash of Light Over Mississippi Possibly a Bolide

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Sep 20 12:03:11 2005
Message-ID: <200509201556.j8KFuEM07350_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050920/COL0205/509200355/1201

Bright flash of light in sky possibly a bolide
By Jack Sunn
The Clarion-Ledger (Mississippi)
September 20, 2005

Q: I live in the Madison area and was out walking around 6 a.m. Sept. 12
when there was a flash of light so bright I thought it could be the
street light flashing before it blew out. Then I looked up in the sky
and saw this streak of light that looked like a shooting star but
brighter, then faded out. The flash of light was so bright and so high
in the sky that I feel sure it was seen for miles, maybe hundreds of
miles in every direction.

I assume it was some sort of cosmic explosion, so far into space there
was no sound of an explosion just the flash of bright light. I watched
the weather and paper but nothing was ever reported. I have five
witnesses who saw the same thing, two living 60 miles from me. I know
other people must have been up and saw the same thing. Could you please
find out what I saw? - initials.

A: Our sky pal Gary Lazich, Davis Planetarium manager, tells us you
probably saw what astronomers call a bolide, an especially bright meteor
that might leave a brief smoke trail behind it.

Normal meteors appear when flecks of space dust no larger than a grain
of sand plunge through our atmosphere at speeds about 40 miles per
second. Friction with the surrounding air creates the glowing trail we
see from the ground. A meteoroid the size of a marble creates a bolide
as it falls. Larger chunks of rock - asteroid fragments the size of a
baseball - leave a brilliant trail behind as they fall and may actually
explode with an audible report.

Or, you may have observed the re-entry of a booster rocket. But
typically those flame across the sky, leave prominent smoke trails and
spark many calls to the planetarium. Since they didn't get any calls
last week, Lazich suspects a bolide is what you saw.
Received on Tue 20 Sep 2005 11:56:10 AM PDT