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(meteorobs) FW: Fireball Seen From Germany, Belgium
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[meteorite-list] Fireball Seen From Germany, Belgium
Ron Baalke baalke@zagami.jpl.nasadot gov
Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:50:41 -0800 (PST)
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=3903
Great balls of fire, its a meteorite!
expatica.com (Holland)
22 January 2004
AMSTERDAM - A large number of star gazers claim to
have seen a large fireball shoot through cloud cover
on Wednesday night in what experts believe was a
meteorite falling to earth.
The Dutch Meteor Society (DMS) said the fireball
probably took place somewhere above the Belgian-German
border in Wallonia. It was seen in Limburg, eastern
Belgium and Germany, Dutch news agency ANP reported.
The Leiden-based DMS also said the fireball was most
probably due to a meteorite and ruled out the
possibility that it was a broken fragment of a
satellite or a rocket. A society spokesman based the
claim on information supplied by US aerospace agency
NASA.
But a lack of hard and fast facts regarding the
fireball means it is difficult to determine if
fragments fell to earth. It is assumed that the
meteorite burned up in the earth's atmosphere before
hitting the ground.
Dozens of sightings were lodged with star watch
association Exploirion, based in the southern Dutch
city of Heerlen, Besides sightings in Limburg,
Belgium, Germany and even residents of the northern
Dutch city of Groningen said they saw the spectacle.
Meteorites usually burn up in the earth's atmosphere
and Wednesday night's fireball was created about 60 to
100km above the earth's surface. German news agency
DPA said the rock probably did not hit the earth's
surface.
A researcher with the European Space Agency (ESA) in
Darmstadt, Germany, said the meteorite would have been
about 10cm to 50cm in size.
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