Two nights ago, a ~100 lb meteoroid traveling 53,000 mph hit the atmosphere over the southeastern USA and exploded around 2:30 AM on August 28th, producing sonic booms and a fireball as bright as a full Moon. Researchers are now scouring the countryside for fragments that could reveal the nature and origin of the meteoroid.
NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office has upgraded its estimates of the fireball. Lead researcher Bill Cooke says “the fireball reached a peak magnitude of -13, brighter than a Full Moon, and cast shadows on the ground. This indicates that the meteoroid had a mass of over 50 kg (110 lbs) and was about 40 cm (16 inches) in diameter. It hit the top of Earth’s atmosphere traveling 23.7 km/s (53,000 mph).”
“As far as I know, this is the brightest event our network has observed in 5 years of operation,” he continues. “There are reports of sonic booms reaching the ground, and data from 4 doppler radars indicate that some meteorites may have fallen along the fireball’s ground track.” (Note: The city in the ground track map is Cleveland, Tennessee, not Cleveland, Ohio.)
Using data from multiple cameras, Cooke has calculated a preliminary orbit for the meteoroid. The shape and dimensions of the orbit are similar those of a Jupiter-family comet. If meteorites are recovered from the Tennessee countryside, their chemical composition will tell researchers more about the origin of the fireball.
Check SpaceWeather for further details.
Filed under: Meteors & Meteorites
