The American Meteor Society has received over 100 fireball reports so far regarding a large fireball seen last night in the south west United States.
Here is a video of the fireball that was submitted to the AMS website:
Here’s a map of the fireball witness reports. The icons of people represent where the witnesses saw the meteor from. The green icon indicates the witness reported movement from right to left, the red icon means movement from left to right. The green lines represent where the witness first saw the fireball, the yellow line is where the fireball was last sighted. Please keep in mind not all witnesses can report exactly what they saw and there are inconsistencies with data reported from witnesses. Click the map graphic below for an interactive google maps fireball report viewer.
September 14th, 2011 - South West Fireball
We are in the process of plotting the trajectory but this is a bit challenging due to the large number of reports and inconsistencies between reports. Right now, the best guess for an end point is slightly north east of Yuma Arizona and south west of Phoenix.
We will update this post with more information as it becomes available.
If you witnessed this event, please fill out a fireball report.
Mike, you might want to review what the colors of the paths and “persons” mean.
MW
I saw the fireball very clearly from phoenix. It was spitting pieces off right at the very end of its visible flight. I was on the patio of my house and can accuratley tell you where it stopped being visible, and its trajectory. It was definitely a once in a lifetime event.
On september 9th Nasa announced that there would be a dead satellite coming down later in the month. They did not know for sure where or when, but they did say it would re-enter across mid latitudes. Their estimate of 1000 lbs of debris is important as a reference for visual comparison. One ‘expert’ stated the meteor size was equal to that of a baseball,, doubtful for sure,,, but easy to verify scientifically,, if someone is up for a challenge,, lets drop a few softball size anvil-like objects from space. We cold also ask nasa if their satelite came down on the 14th.. To claim that this is a meteor is a bit premature. dzp
I’m working a means of locating the path of the fireball that uses a more sophisticated method involving geometry and assumptions about the altitude of the object. But the data that is publicly available doesn’t seem to include the exact positions of the observes. Is there a way I can obtain these data?
Also, I think there may be a bug in the form processing for the reports. Many reports are labeled “moving left to right” when the report and other observations indicate the opposite.
@DZ – the satellite you reference has still not fallen. They expect it to come down this thursday or friday. I also suspected space trash at first because of the shallow entry angle and overall reported duration. However, Marco Langbroek pointed out on meteor obs mailing list: “A check of SSC Space-Track data shows there is no suitable decay candidate for that date.” The JPL also believes the event was a meteor: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-291
@Wayne – Thanks for the suggestions, I will add extra explanations to the post.
@Greg – You can email me through the contact form and request specific witness accounts and I can give you more precise coordinates. You can also use the map tool to get a more exact location.
I would like to remind the dedicated that most humans have no idea which compass bearings relate to their current position.Nothing moves through the air space of North America that is not measured for size or shape.Ascending/descending velocity,altitude and attitude are all instantaneously calculated and verified.It is possible to obtain temperatures across the entire surface of the entry object,rate of oblation and if necessary core temperatures.Should the NEO,meteor,entry vehicle fragment or mrv each seperate piece and all of the above can take place.Any trajectory deviations would be detected and impact points determined and/or recalculated.Should mass be sufficient for the soon to be meteor”ite” to impact then that location can be determined within [(classified)(need to know)].Let us agree upon a one/eighth of a mile impact zone,+/- 111 yrds.Now we have land fall…Who is in the Osprey with me on the retrieval team??Ah… you say,the loadout?Your right!Probably should have two birds.
This is the meteor fireball I witnessed on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 when I was driving on Prescott Lakes Parkway to the south between Willow Lake Road and State Route 89 in Prescott, Arizona. It was 7:45 PM. The green glow was flying across my field of vision almost horizontally from west to east (right to left). It lasted for about 10 seconds before it disappeared behind a mountain. It was so huge that I thought it was a falling aircraft at first! I have never seen such a huge meteorite flying for such long duration.
This is my observation, I wrote it down as quickly as I could after the sighting. I always look at the time when I witness something like this.
I was driving southbound on I-95 south of Cheyenne Avenue in Las Vegas at 7:45 local time when I saw it. It was a huge green fireball meteor, moving west to east from my perspective. I first spotted it roughly 25-30 degrees above the southern horizon, until it burned out around 10 degrees above the horizon. I would estimate it tracked across 50 degrees of the sky, lasted probably 3 seconds, and the center of the track was directly in front of me, though I likely missed some of it before it caught my attention. It was glowing mostly green (tending a little towards the blue end of green?), but there were other colors in the fragments that were breaking off.