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Re: (meteorobs) The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball over Wyoming
GeoZay related:
>It entered the atmosphere over the Central rockies, traveling at 33,000
miles >per hour.
I wonder how the speed was measured; was it recorded on radar somewhere?
>It remained in the atmosphere for 101 seconds, covering nearly 1,000 miles
in >that brief sojourn. Then it skipped out of the atmosphere, much as a
stone >skips over water. Estimates of it's size vary from 33 feet to 260
feet across. >If it was a stony asteroid, it's mass was between 1,000 and 1
million tons. >..."
I aint no physicist; but good grief..surely an object between 33 and 260
feet across traveling at 33,000 miles per hour would have left some
HORRENDOUS kind of sonic boom? Seems to me there might also have been some
kind of atmospheric disturbance; that minimum diameter is about the same as
the old Titan III rockets, wasn't it? And THOSE only got to about Mach 10
while accelerating, something less than 10,000 MPH, didn't they?
On the other hand, 33,000 MPH is only about 14.7 kilometers per second, a
lot slower than slow meteors.
>I don't know how this time was measured for sure...but I find it interesting
>that it noted 101 seconds and not 100 seconds if it was an estimate. Sounds
>like someone got some accurate times some how?
Not by radar; that 101 seconds was visual. Why was this known as a Wyoming
fireball; seems it would have been big enough to have been seen over the
entire Rocky Mountain range from Canada down to New Mexico?
SteveH