Monday, February 23, 2009

Texas Fireball Likely a Metallic Meteor

A fairly large meteor cam crashing down in west Texas last week just after a pair of satellites were reported to have collided. There was a lot of speculation that chunks of satellite debris fell over Texas as a large fireball. At about the same time sonic boons were being heard over Kentucky, and something was said to have fallen from the sky somewhere in the eastern part of Kentucky.

Officials that are tracking the satellite debris, say that the falling objects could not have been from the left over satellites since they were not in the vicinity. It is more likely that both were meteorites. Based on the burn color, the meteorite in Texas is metallic in origin, and likely to have been the size of a pickup truck.

Since the meteor was so big, a number of meteorite hunters are flocking to West Texas to try to find pieces of the space rock. Texas is a big state! To find something on the ground, hunters are going to have to rely on pure dumb luck!

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