©WBIR |
Meteor photographed over Tennessee in January 2007 |
Numerous East Tennesseans reported seeing a bright green light streak through the sky Wednesday night. Police dispatchers said they got so many calls, they didn't have time to count them.
Reports on its direction of travel varied somewhat. Most accounts on its shape and color reported it being blue-green with a comet-like tail, and many callers to WBIR were surprised by the size of it.
WBIR's own Steve Phillips saw the light as he returned from dinner and said it was larger than he expected a meteor to be.
Professor Paul Lewis didn't see the event himself, but from people's description, he expects it was a meteor.
"It's entirely possible that it could be a piece of space debris," he said. "Or, as I suspect, it's probably a piece of junk out of some asteroid belt, a rocky meteor, for instance."
Lewis went on to explain that if it were a meteor, it was likely alone. East Tennessee won't see another meteor shower until April 22nd. He added that the only way to know with absolute certainty what the object was would be if NORAD had been tracking it.
I wonder how he comes to the conclusion that it was "likely alone". I mean, if I wake up in the morning it's not likely to be Sunday, because that doesn't happen very often. But sometimes it does. And it's not likely to be a new month either, because that doesn't happen very often. And only rarely when I wake up is it new years eve. But it does happen. It's just a matter of different cycles, with different lengths. So, understanding this, saying that a meteor is "likely alone" is like saying "it's probably not Sunday today", which is sort of true, but sort of irrelevant, because sometimes it is and that day just might be today.
The good news is that it's possible to tell what day it is when you wake up without having to guess. If your head hurts like hell and you have a dry mouth, it's probably Sunday. Similarly, by reading the Signs you will have a pretty good idea if a meteor is likely to be alone or not.