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RE: (meteorobs) bright fireball 7/4/2002

Junk media information on this fireball is still dominating German 
press, TV and broadcast, and it is still hard to serparate facts from 
fuss. There evidently was a very bright fireball over Bavaria at about 
20:21 UT. Estimates suggest a magnitude of about -14mag or 
brighter.  There appears to have been a sonic boom in the area of 
Garmisch-Partenkirchen south of Munich. People who saw the 
fireball say it disintegrated into a number of fragments. 

There is breaking news of a stony meteorite found near Erding, 
northeast of Munich. This report however clearly needs additional 
confirmation. Although a Munich geochemistry professor has 
stated this being "probably" a meteorite several things look rather 
strange. First the lady finding the stone saw the fireball "land in her 
garden like a firework rocket" - a typical error eyewitnesses far 
away from an impact make.  Secondly both trajectory and the 
sonic boom suggest the impact area (if any) located SOUTHEAST 
of Munich, perhaps closer to the Austrian border. There have been 
eyewitnesses from downtown Munich seeing the fireball overhead, 
heading southward. In short an impact site near Erding does not 
really match to the observed trajectory (unless the stray ellipse 
being VERY large).  Thirdly reports in the media describing the 
candidate meteorite looking like "slag" are not increasing the trust 
into that matter. But time will tell. 

There is a quite dense meteor camera network operating in the 
region and also in neighbouring Czechia. Probably some of these 
shuttered all-sky cameras captured the event. This will allow a 
better analysis of the fireball trajectory and identification of the 
possible impact area. 

Hartwig


H. Luethen
h.luthen@botanik.uni-hamburgdot de
priv: Behnstr. 13, D-22767 Hamburg
lab: Institut fuer Allgemeine Botanik, Ohnhorststr. 18
     D-22609 Hamburg, Germany
Tel: 0049 (0)40-3800551 priv
     0049 (0)40-428-16-337



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