Friday, January 2, 2009

Fireball and Sonic Booms in Alaska

On Monday December 29th, a possible fireball streaked across the sky and created sonic booms over Tok, Alaska. The loud booms and contrails had local residents concerned that an aircraft mishap had occured. There were even some theories that the Air Force was operating, or maybe UFOs had landed.

Where the heck is Tok? Well it is a leisurely 6 hour drive from Anchorage along Alaska Route 1. It is really amazing how big the state is.

Calls started streaming in to a local 911 dispatch shortly after 330 pm in the afternoon, with people reporting hearing a large sonic boom. Others saw a smoky contrail, while some actually did see the fireball come down and break up into several pieces.

The area is quite remote, so there will probably be little chance of finding any pieces. The object was probably about the size of a volleyball, or maybe a little larger.

Alaska misses out on most meteor showers in the summertime because of the nearly 24 hour daylight in that occurs over most of the state.

In the wintertime, it is another story, as it is dark most of the time, so your chances of seeing object streaking in from space are much greater.

Source: NewsMiner

1 comment:

Unknown said...

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