Comments on: Fireball over Colorado

By: Paul Barrow

Paul Barrow — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 05:16:29 +0000

I’ve done some research on the veracity of NORAD’s story that this was a Russian rocket booster. It may have been because of the launch trajectory, but the likelihood that it came from the Corot launch on December 27 is practically nil. See story on my website. http://www.hotmedia.us

By: Madalone

Madalone — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:05:51 +0000

@Harold:

According to NORAD sources cited in the Fox Colorado website, the fireball was caused by the booster stage for the COROT satellite.

The COROT telescope will try to find extrasolar planets by detecting their transits in front of their home suns. An interesting mission that has gone tragically underreported in the Bas Astronomy Blog. (@BA: Nudge, nudge…)

More to be found at http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/

Greetings from good olde Europe

Matthias DÃ¼bendorfer

By: Timothy Reed

Timothy Reed — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 05:06:27 +0000

On April 24, 1990, I had the good fortune to witness the re-entry of the Space Shuttle external tank from a vantage point on Maui. STS-31 was the flight that put the Hubble Space Telecope in orbit. The external tank usually burns up over the Indian Ocean, but the higher inclination orbit of this flight gave NASA an opportunity to dump the tank over Hawaii. The advantage of that was to observe the breakup with the array of telescopes at the Air Force Maui Optical Station on top of Haleakala.

Detailed observation was desired because NASA wanted to see if the tank would sufficiently break up without the use of the external tank tumble valve, which is used to jettison residual oxygen and hydrogen to start the tank rotating so that when it enters the atmosphere it breaks up more readily. (If you want something to break up in the atmosphere, the last thing you want is a nice stable aerodynamic shape easily slicing through the air.)

Working on a project associated with the Haleakala station, I was notified of the impending re-entry at about 3 a.m. local time. The spectacle was quite similar to the Colorado re-entry — colorful, bright, silent — but larger in extent. Two bright flashes early in the re-entry were presumably the ruptures of the oxygen and hydrogen tanks.

While I didn’t see this one (I live in the Denver metro area), I can assure you that it’s a truly spectacular sight!

Timothy Reed

By: Melusine

Melusine — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 03:27:29 +0000

Andrew, I’m not positive that Dr. Tony Phillips wrote that page, but he often plays a little loose with language (which is not a criticism – I’m devoted to Spaceweather.com). But to me “extinct” and “obsolete” due to “re-zoning” mean two different things. Extinct to me implies the constellation disappeared for good. Obsolete in name means just that. Maybe this is a semantic nitpick. “Extinct constellation” still sounds weird to me, but I’m not an astronomer. Well, learn something new every day…

By: Meteors from an extinct constellation (at wongaBlog)

Meteors from an extinct constellation (at wongaBlog) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 23:54:50 +0000

[...] A friend sent me a link to this video of a spectacular ‘meteor shower’ over Colorado yesterday. It’s thought to actually be a Russian booster burning up in the atmosphere, but is nevertheless quite the sight. The news anchors, however, describe it as “meteors from an extinct constellation”. Meteors from an extinct constellation!? I can’t even imagine what they’re trying to say, and it seemed completely bizarre until a commenter at Bad Astronomy found this page. The actual meteor shower happening that night was the Quadrantids, and according to that Spaceweather site: Quadrantid meteors take their name from an obsolete constellation, Quadrans Muralis, found in early 19th-century star atlases between Draco, Hercules, and Bootes. It was removed, along with a few other constellations, from crowded sky maps in 1922 when the International Astronomical Union adopted the modern list of 88 officially-recognized constellations. The Quadrantids, which were “re-zoned” to Bootes after Quadrans Muralis disappeared, kept their name–possibly because another January shower was already widely-known to meteor watchers as the “Bootids.” [...]

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 23:46:07 +0000

I think Melusine’s link explains the constellation remark. That site is 6th in google results for ‘Quadrantids’, and the final paragraph explains that the name of the shower comes from a constellation no longer officially recognised. The title of the page is the exact phrase the anchor used, too. Shame they didn’t think about what they were saying, though!

By: Harold

Harold — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:50:43 +0000

The most remarkable thing I’ve heard about this is that the Russian rocket had been used to lauch a French space telescope. Since when do the French have a space telescope? WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED OF THIS??? Cool if true.

Allison Cleckler, I remember seeing a firbeall once and have a vague memory of hearing a crackling sound at the same time. This simultaneous-sound phenomenon is occasionally reported, and there are a few legitimate theories (or would they be hypotheses?) to explain this. (The simultaneity is a big question. Think about the huge sound lag when a jet flies far overhead – and jets are much, much closer that meteors.) I wouldn’t be surprised if Phil has an entry on this somewhere.