(meteorobs) Why so much uncertainty about re-entry?

[Paul Goelz]

At 11:30 AM 9/24/2011, you wrote:
>For Paul and Dan and others questioning the large uncertainty
>in the re-entry predictions, here's a relevant paragraph from
>the Aerospace Corporation:
>
>"It is very difficult to predict where debris from a randomly
>reentering satellite will hit Earth, primarily because drag
>on the object is directly proportional to atmospheric density,
>and atmospheric density varies greatly at high altitudes. In
>general, we can predict the time that reentry will begin to
>within 10 percent of the actual time. Unfortunately, reentering
>objects travel so fast that a minute of error in the time is
>equivalent to many miles on the ground."

Just to be clear.... I am not questioning the difficulty of 
PREDICTING the reentry or impact point.  I fully understand those 
difficulties.  What I am questioning is the lack of any specific 
information in the hours/minutes leading up to the event and 
especially many hours afterwards.

Yes, I am sure the event was observed by some entity.  I find it odd 
that those observations have not been made available.

Paul


Paul Goelz
Rochester Hills, Michigan USA
pgoelz at comcast.net
www.pgoelz.com