Open AccessThe trans‐Alabama superbolide of 5 December 1999
Author(s) -
King David T.,
Petruny Lucille W.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2003eo270001
Subject(s) - sky , meteorite , dozen , event (particle physics) , atmosphere (unit) , odds , trajectory , subject (documents) , computer science , computer security , astrobiology , geology , meteorology , astronomy , geography , physics , astrophysics , mathematics , world wide web , logistic regression , arithmetic , machine learning
Several dozen very bright superbolides enter Earth's atmosphere each year, usually terminating with an explosion of the incoming meteoritic body Coordinated camera set‐ups have captured images of a very few meteorites, which led to their recovery But most bright meteoritic events are seen by eyewitnesses who are in the right place at the right time, or by security cameras, which are typically not pointed at the sky. The superbolide that is reported on here was seen by many and recorded on such security cameras. Careful collection and analysis of eyewitness data allowed a trajectory to be estimated, which is at odds with data of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on this event. A few meteoritic events result in an “impossible” effect; that is, they apparently start ground fires. The superbolide that is the subject of this article was one of them.