After a massive fireball smashed into southeastern Peru last fall, scientists dismissed a shot-down spy satellite as the cause. But many questions remain about the unusual crater it left behind. Andrew Westoll reports
When the Pentagon announced last Monday that it had successfully shot down a wayward U.S. spy satellite, political-conspiracy theorists went wild. Officials called the cosmic potshot a matter of international security - the bus-sized satellite, too big to burn up on re-entry, was carrying more than 500 kilograms of toxic hydrazine gas - but America-watchers worldwide wondered aloud whether the satellite story was a pretext for the U.S. military to flex its space-racing muscles.
For me, though, the event reminded me not of the Star Wars debate, but instead whisked me back to a tiny farming village in southeastern Peru I had visited last November.
Murray Balsom was trying to launch a weather balloon when a huge fireball burst across the sky over his small Arctic village of Resolute. "This was humungous," he said of the gaseous light show he witnessed 10 days ago.
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©Unknown
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A Geminid meteor streaks across the sky against a field of star trails in this 1 1/2-minute exposure early Dec. 14, 2006, near Willow Beach, Arizona.
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TEACHERS and pupils at a Birmingham school will this week be analysing fragments of "meteor" ice which crashed into a playing field, narrowly missing stunned pupils.
It ploughed into the field at Yardleys Secondary School, in Tyseley, yesterday.
The ice is believed to be a megacryo-meteor - the name given to abnormally large chunks of ice which fall from a clear sky.
Pieces of the ice have now been stored in a freezer at the specialist science college in Reddings Lane for possible further analysis.
Bright flash spotted at about 5:30 a.m. as far west as Tillamook, as far east as Idaho
People across Oregon and southwest Washington spotted a fireball in the sky Tuesday morning.
Most reports of the fireball sighting came just after 5:30 a.m. A man who called 911 said "it lit up the whole sky" in the Milwaukie area.
FOX 12 meteorologist Drew Jackson said
the object was likely the size of a basketball. He said that the object probably broke apart before hitting land.
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Meteor over Portland
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Video (courtesy KGW)
Video (courtesy CNN)
Comment: Amazing the flash created by a "basketball" sized meteor. Imagine the blast made by something larger. Imagine the impact of several larger meteors arriving in close succession.....
Mark Thorsell
KPAXTue, 19 Feb 2008 12:01 UTC
The Associated Press is reporting that the meteor that streaked across Montana early Tuesday morning landed in eastern Washington.
A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Seattle says a Horizon Airlines pilot say the meteorite hit at around 6:45 a.m. near State Route 26 and Lind-Hatton Road in the southeast corner of Adams County. (click here for map)
There have been no reports of damage and sheriff's dispatchers say they aren't aware of any meteorite landing in the area.
Early risers across Clark County saw a meteor, described as blue or green in color, that hit the ground in Eastern Washington around 5:45 a.m. today.
The meteor was traveling from west to east, according to witness reports. The Associated Press reported the sighting was confirmed by the Federal Aviation Administration in the Seattle area, and was reported from Portland to Seattle and east to Spokane and Boise.
SPOKANE - A meteor was seen across a wide area of the Pacific Northwest early today.
A Federal Aviation Administration duty officer in Seattle confirms that the streaking light in the sky was a meteor.
If you spotted bright lights streaking across the predawn sky this morning, you weren't alone.
Comment: Amazing the flash created by a "basketball" sized meteor. Imagine the blast made by something larger. Imagine the impact of several larger meteors arriving in close succession.....