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Object Falls Through the Atmosphere With a Bright White Tail
There were dozens of people in Perth and South West Australia on Monday who reported a bright white light flashing across the sky, which was also recorded on dashcams.
“Don’t know what it was, but whilst on a break at work, was walking back to the workshop and saw a bright flash and an object falling through the atmosphere with a white bright lit tail,” Perth resident Chris Ugle posted in a Facebook group titled Australian Meteor Reports.
Dr. Jonathan Paxman, from Curtin University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said his team was analyzing a dash-cam showing the footage of a meteor travelling through the sky in an effort to reconstruct its trajectory.
Meteor fireball in the sky bedazzles Western Australia residents:
“We’ve got four videos now from different locations around Perth which shows quite a clear picture of the path of the meteor,” Dr. Paxman said. “What we can do from that is precisely pinpoint the angles through which this meteor was observed. People think it’s just over the next hill, or it can’t be more than 500 meters away, but it turns out to actually be hundreds of kilometers away.
Footage of the meteor on a dashcam:
Dr. Paxman said: “The videos proved reports that the meteorite landed on a rural property in Gidgegannup were incorrect; it’s almost certainly not in a paddock in Gidgegannup,” and said. “It was more heading out towards Morawa and Perenjori, so quite a ways north of Perth”.
“Fireballs are a really deceptive thing because they’re so bright, and there’s not necessarily any distance reference for them when they’re in the sky, so they can look really close. It’s very common in fireball observations all over the world, where people think it’s just over the next hill, or it can’t be more than 500 meters away, but it turns out to actually be hundreds of kilometers away,” Said Paxman.
Dr. Paxman said dash-cams have proven to be useful in tracking meteors in the past, including one that caused panic in central Russia in 2013. “It was the same in the Russian meteor a couple of years ago, where there were many, many dash cam video observations, and those were what they used to construct where the meteor fell,” he said.
This would have been a real light show if it had been night time.
www.visiontimes.com
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