Video of meteor hitting Earth Options

[ilbasso]

Surveillance camera video of what appears to be a meteor slamming into the ground, in eastern Washington state -
CNN meteor footage

[ugordan]

Slamming into the ground? I'm not convinced the actual impact is seen. Even if it is, that appears to be many kilometers away.

[djellison]

Yup - really doesn't look like an impact to me - maybe it did impact, but you can't tell from that footage (cool though it is)

[ElkGroveDan]

With the different camera angles it wouldn't be too hard to estimate a likely impact location, if it did indeed impact. Eastern Washington has some very remote areas. It is possible that a steaming crater could be out there somewhere that no one has stumbled across yet.

[ngunn]

If anything landed with cosmic velocity I think we'd have seismic confirmation by now. It looks to me like an airburst which may or may not have dropped solid fragments slowed to some terminal aerial velocity before impact.

[ugordan]

The thing is, the object didn't necessarily need to be that large at all to produce a flash like that. These are night shots and the exposures are adjusted for darkness so it might not have been as bright as it appears from the footage. Noticeably bright, no doubt, but probably not turning-night-into-day bright.

As an out-of-thin-air estimate, I'd say the meteorite was on the order of a golf ball at most. If so, that low(?) airburst might have shattered it into too small pieces (dust?) to produce a crater. Alternatively, it might not have been low at all, just rather distant.

Here's some of that footage but in better quality and slow-mo: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/media/video/?ID=1559

[ilbasso]

Interesting that even at its brightest, it did not cast a shadow in that footage from Idaho.

[ugordan]

As I said, it's easy to blind cameras tuned for night vision with moderate light levels. If the flash were really bright enough to cast shadows in the foreground, I suspect the entire image would be whited-out because the flash was in the FOV. Instead, we just see a brightening in the sky. From that alone, this looks like a somewhat brighter meteor fireball to me (think Perseids or Leonids).

[ElkGroveDan]

Just for fun I went to Google Earth and examined Gowen Field in Boise to see if I could find this camera location. I think it's on a pole next to the street. The building on the right has a red roof. 43* 33' 32.98" N 116* 1313' 51.76" W

If this is the correct spot then the point of "impact" if there was one, would have (very roughly) been along a line from Boise to the NNW that passes East of Kennewick, WA, and West of Spokane, WA. All very remote mountainous and forested areas. Now if I could only figure out which way that other camera was pointing.....

[Guest_Bobby_*]

I live in Western Washington and I have driven through Adams County in Eastern Washington.
Sources like Fox News is reporting that it hit within Adams county.

It is a very isolated area with a population about 17,000 people. It's land area is about
1,930 Square Miles or 4,999 km of which only 5 square miles is water.

From what I seen of the area it has very little trees and is a desert looking place. Any impact
from the air should be very visible.

[djellison]

iirc, Boise is where MER chute drop tests were done isn't it.

Doug

[ElkGroveDan]

I live in Western Washington and I have driven through Adams County in Eastern Washington.
Sources like Fox News is reporting that it hit within Adams county.

Wow, that means my predicted path was right on. Thanks for that Bobby, that made my day.

If this is the correct spot then the point of "impact" if there was one, would have (very roughly) been along a line from Boise to the NNW that passes East of Kennewick, WA, and West of Spokane, WA. All very remote mountainous and forested areas.

[Vultur]

It would be useful to know what the camera's sensitivity to light was. Even ordinary bolides/fireballs can be pretty bright to a dark-adapted eye...

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Check: http://www.imo.net/