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The 21 Sep Meteor
Sep. 28th, 2012 10:28 pmThe bright meteor seen over the UK last week may have briefly been aerocaptured into orbit before entering again over North America.
This does look plausible. The 21 Sep fireball was very odd: it resembled a satellite re-entry in its relatively low speed and long duration, but was travelling the wrong way (east to west) and there was no known large orbital decay due. Speculation is that it may have been a very small asteroid in an orbit similar to the Earth's, which would account for the relatively low encounter velocity.
So far the analysis seems to have been based on visual reports and a few videos from ground-based observers. But this event will have been detected by the DSP missile-warning satellites and, given the object's trajectory, it ought to have been tracked by the BMEWS radar at Fylingdales - indeed, it must have gone almost overhead! I'm aware from my long-ago limited exposure to such systems that there is wariness about disclosing data that might reveal intelligence capabilities, but I wonder if there is scope for some suitably sanitised information to be disclosed that might help verify this intriguing hypothesis?
This does look plausible. The 21 Sep fireball was very odd: it resembled a satellite re-entry in its relatively low speed and long duration, but was travelling the wrong way (east to west) and there was no known large orbital decay due. Speculation is that it may have been a very small asteroid in an orbit similar to the Earth's, which would account for the relatively low encounter velocity.
So far the analysis seems to have been based on visual reports and a few videos from ground-based observers. But this event will have been detected by the DSP missile-warning satellites and, given the object's trajectory, it ought to have been tracked by the BMEWS radar at Fylingdales - indeed, it must have gone almost overhead! I'm aware from my long-ago limited exposure to such systems that there is wariness about disclosing data that might reveal intelligence capabilities, but I wonder if there is scope for some suitably sanitised information to be disclosed that might help verify this intriguing hypothesis?
