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Re: (meteorobs) The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball over Wyoming
GeoZay>It entered the atmosphere over the Central rockies, traveling at
33,000
miles >per hour.
Steve H>>I wonder how the speed was measured; was it recorded on radar
somewhere?<<
There were movies made of it and witnessed by many from different locations.
Off the movies, it shouldn't have been too difficult to get some good
approximations of it's velocity.
GeoZay>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. >..."
SteveH>>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? <<
According to another page in Rocks in Space, it indeed produced loud sonic
booms.
SteveH>>On the other hand, 33,000 MPH is only about 14.7 kilometers per
second, a
lot slower than slow meteors.<<
14.7 kilometers per second is in the range of what I would consider Very Slow
meteors....yes, this would make it a lot slower than Slow meteors...Which is
the typical slow meteor that is often seen in the evening. But at 14.7
kilometers/sec during Afternoon Daylight hours is reasonable for an
asteroidal object catching up with the earth to be doing.
GeoZay>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?<<
SteveH>>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?<<
I didn't find anything that mentioned it was detected by Radar...but a
possibility still. It's not known as the Wyoming Fireball..dot it's known as the
Great Daylight 1972 Fireball. It was photographed over Wyoming and Montana
that I know for sure. I don't know the exact direction of it's travel, but I
have heard and seen photos where it was observed over Glaciar Park Montana.
George Zay
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