Re: Large meteor strikes Norway - size of Hiroshima bomb

On 11 Jun 2006 13:22:50 -0700, "CNJ999" <jbortle@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Every couple of years one of these vastly over hyped fireball reports
turns up. I recall a similar report of such a similar incident in
Greenland a few years ago. Initial stories reported the appearance of a
brilliant fireball followed by an enormous explosion at ground level
accompanyied by a very strong pressure or shock wave (high speed wind)
plus a melting of a huge portion of an ice field. It all turned out to
be completely bogus.

Not so. There really was an exceptionally large fireball over Greenland,
that dissipated the energy of a smallish nuclear bomb. It showed up on
DOD satellites, and its pressure wave affected seismic and infrasound
sensors. It was a big event. The only inaccurate bit involved it
reaching the ground and melting ice. And that was only reported in some
of the popular press- those investigating the event said no such thing.


What really is the problem is that the early reports generally come
from people totally unfamiliar with astronomy, let alone with bright
fireballs, and - God help us all, reported by media-types - resulting
in all sorts of fantastic stories arising.

I think most of the initial data comes from astronomers, but very few
astronomers actually know much about meteors. What happens is the
reporter calls up a local university, observatory, or planetarium and
talks to somebody with generally good credentials, just not with respect
to meteoritics. There is a lot of bad information out there- most
astronomy textbooks even have inaccuracies when it comes to meteors.


From the "details" I've seen
reported so far regarding this incident in Norway, I expect it to be
just another false alarm.

If you mean with respect to a large ground impact, yes. But this was
still a moderately large fireball, widely witnessed, and which may well
have produced meteorites (although they will probably never be
recovered).

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
.

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