Possible Satellite Debris Falling Across The Region

reply to post by Zeptepi


My niece and I were driving home last night and thought we had seen a falling star. Now I'm wondering if this is actually what we had seen. It was a very bluish white light traveling quickly though the sky and looked as if it landed nearby.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Wel I didnt find it but just relating the information. I find it intriguing all the connections you can make if you look deep enough.

anybody else thing this accident was caused deliberately to wreck a secret spy satellite by ramming it with your own satellite?

Here are two eyewitness reports near the area. These where submitted to wkyt early this morning.
Thanks for link schrodingers dog and Kain01 in the other thread.
wkyt

Salyersville, KY on Feb 14, 2009 at 01:01 AM
My sister and I were driving from Paintsville to Salyersville around 10:30 when we saw an odd,elongated spherical shaped blue glowing object falling from the sky to the right side of the road into the wooded mountain area. Until we watched the 11:00 news we were thourougly confused as to what this object might have been. It was rather large, or seemed to be from our quick glance at it as it fell and we drove away. We did not hear any boom or other noise in conjunction to this event however. I can only hope that it was not an actual piece of physical debris from the sattelite and that the object did not hit anything or anyone if it was indeed intact upon landing.

corbin on Feb 14, 2009 at 02:08 AM
Me and some friends were coon hunting, when suddenly night became like daylight, when looking up in the sky seen a large object you about couldn't look at because it was so bright. It lasted bout 20 seconds and then went out not real high above our heads after dissapearing we heard a huge rumble like 2 semi's colliding, not knowing for sure what it was we headed home.

This event could have been falling sat debris. Or meteor/meteorite? I believe that normally
meteors do not make sound, but I am unsure of that. Member C.H.U.D. is one of ATS's
resident meteor experts, and I hope he chimes in here with his assesment.
As to the possibility that the collision was somehow intentional is dubious In my mind.
Why would anyone with many other satellites in or near 700km orbit (this is a very populated orbit) purposely cause thousands of unpredictable high speed fragments to
jeopardize many of their own satellites? Think of this as a three-dimensional billiard table.
Or even like firing a shotgun in a metal box room. No, If someone wanted to disable an already disabled sat, there are other "safer" "star wars" methods.

Thanks to everyone for searching for tidbits on this.
You have renewed my faith in ATS's ability to deny ignorance, and get to the truth!
Many of these thousands of pieces will be in orbit for decades or even centuries to come.
We may soon have a need to build a space garbage retrieval system.
Curb service?
Peace

Originally posted by fatdad
anybody else thing this accident was caused deliberately to wreck a secret spy satellite by ramming it with your own satellite?

Maybe ... but would't it be better to just disable the spy satelllite (if it was functioning afterall) rather than causing the collision of both into hundreds of pieces that now risk ramming into other space objects and creating millions of pieces of debris?

@ Zeptepi
Meteorites or fireballs can create sonic booms.

oh and sorry, I didn't read your post above before I replied, and I just repeated what you said

[edit on 14-2-2009 by violet]

Yikes,If this artist's impression is close to reality.

It wont be long until we witness a major disaster.Forget the tinfoil hats get the 20mm thick armour plated ones.

Lewtra

This guy is saying it was most likely a meteor:

Many viewers have contacted 10 News since Friday evening saying they saw a bright light go across the sky at about 10 p.m. Friday evening.

Some described the light as a greenish color, others said it was white, and some said it had a blue appearance.

Paul Lewis, University of Tennessee Space Science Outreach program director, did not see the light, but said the descriptions he received indicate it may have been a meteor.

We are not in the midst of a meteor shower at this time, but Lewis said random meteors do come down periodically.

From a description of the angle of the light and because it went across the sky, Lewis believes the meteor would have probably touched down hundreds of miles away from East Tennessee, but more likely burned up in the atmosphere.

Lewis is not sure what debris would have been contained in the meteor, but said it is probably too soon to include debris from the satellite collision that happened nearly 500 miles above Siberia on Tuesday.

source

Hi Zeptepi, guys,

It could be quite hard to find out what caused this unless there were photos or video, or something survived.

As violet said, a natural meteor/fireball can also create a boom. By the way violet, FYI, a meteor/fireball can be natural or artificial. Remember the strict definition of a meteor is "the streak of light seen when something (usually a meteoroid, but not always) enters our atmosphere at high velocity".

It could be junk decaying, since 20 seconds is a long time for a natural meteor, but a natural meteor is also a very real possibility. This is still the peak time of the year for natural fireballs.

Events occurring in the afternoon/early evening would suggest a natural origin since this is the typical window for asteroids to approach Earth at this time of year, but as I said before, more info would be needed to be certain.

Originally posted by fatdad
anybody else thing this accident was caused deliberately to wreck a secret spy satellite by ramming it with your own satellite?

The Russian satellite was the Cosmos 2251,

Satellite Collision Creates Dangerous Debris

A privately owned U.S. Iridium satellite collided with the Russian military's defunct Cosmos 2251 satellite (shown in an undated photo) over northern Siberia on Tuesday just before noon, eastern time. The 1,234-pound (560-kilogram) Iridium satellite was part of a network that provides mobile voice and communications capability worldwide.

The 1,984-pound (900-kilogram) Cosmos satellite was also a communications device, but it had been retired for about ten years and was considered space junk.

Well, now it can be considered A LOT of space junk!

A little more info on the Cosmos 2251.

Satellite Cosmos 2251 Identification & Photos

Kosmos-2251 was an 1,984-pound (900 kg) Strela communications satellite. It was launched on a Kosmos-3M carrier rocket on June 16, 1993.[1] It had been deactivated prior to the collision, and remained in orbit as space junk.

And a little info on Strela communications satellites.

Strela-2M

In the period 1970 to 1994 a total of 59 Strela-2M's were launched. The satellites could be monitored in the West by their characteristic continuous wave beacon at 153.660 MHz. After 1994 the Strela-3 replaced both the Strela-1M and Strela-2M in service.
******SKIP******
The hermetically sealed compartment had the equipment mounted in cruciform bays, with the chemical batteries protecting the radio and guidance equipment mounted at the centre. In service Strela-2M exhibited a lifetime of 24 to 36 months.
******SKIP******
1993 June 16 - Cosmos 2251 - Program: Strela. Launch Site: Plesetsk. Launch Complex: LC132/1. Launch Vehicle: Kosmos 3. Mass: 900 kg (1,980 lb). Perigee: 778 km (483 mi). Apogee: 803 km (498 mi). Inclination: 74.00 deg. Period: 100.70 min.
Replaced Cosmos 2112.

All the info I have found points to the Russian satellite as being the deactivated Cosmos 2251 that was launched in 1993, not a top secret, state of the art spy satellite.

[edit on 2/14/2009 by Keyhole]

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.

As violet said, a natural meteor/fireball can also create a boom. By the way violet, FYI, a meteor/fireball can be natural or artificial. Remember the strict definition of a meteor is "the streak of light seen when something (usually a meteoroid, but not always) enters our atmosphere at high velocity".

You learn something new everyday. I always thought a meteorite was a natural object. I witnessed a fireball last summer, beautiful sight,. I didn't hear a sonic boom with this one.

On another note, I was just having a look at the godlike forum that had the pinned thread going last night with lots of kentucky witnesses. Now the thread isn't viewable. It's still being linked in another thread, but you can only see page 1 and cannot access all 19 or 20 pages, it's also not in their search function.

I find that to be a bit suspect, since that forum keeps all the other "silly" threads - if that's what this was deemed as being. I had read in the thread some had said they saw the light coming down, saw it hit the ground and the sonic boom, flames were seen through the trees and fire trucks were on the scene (yes - it could have been someone making up the story). Then another report in a news story said a plane had crashed in this area, then recanted the story saying no plane had crashed. Now we have them saying it was a meteor, which it could very well have been.

In addition to this some of the NOAA reports seem to have been removed by noaa, unless I just can't find them. Edit to correct: not the noaa link posted in the OP.

Wunderground weather also contained the NOAA report, but it's been removed and only visible via the cached page.

Just thought this was of interest to mention

[edit on 14-2-2009 by violet]

Now the godlike page is back via google search and can be viewed and has more pages added, but it's strange it wasn't when I made this post and tried every which way to access the pages.

here's the link:
godlike


[edit on 14-2-2009 by violet]

Originally posted by Keyhole

Originally posted by fatdad
anybody else thing this accident was caused deliberately to wreck a secret spy satellite by ramming it with your own satellite?

The Russian satellite was the Cosmos 2251,

Satellite Collision Creates Dangerous Debris

A privately owned U.S. Iridium satellite collided with the Russian military's defunct Cosmos 2251 satellite (shown in an undated photo) over northern Siberia on Tuesday just before noon, eastern time. The 1,234-pound (560-kilogram) Iridium satellite was part of a network that provides mobile voice and communications capability worldwide.

The 1,984-pound (900-kilogram) Cosmos satellite was also a communications device, but it had been retired for about ten years and was considered space junk.

Well, now it can be considered A LOT of space junk!

A little more info on the Cosmos 2251.

Satellite Cosmos 2251 Identification & Photos

Kosmos-2251 was an 1,984-pound (900 kg) Strela communications satellite. It was launched on a Kosmos-3M carrier rocket on June 16, 1993.[1] It had been deactivated prior to the collision, and remained in orbit as space junk.

And a little info on Strela communications satellites.

Strela-2M

In the period 1970 to 1994 a total of 59 Strela-2M's were launched. The satellites could be monitored in the West by their characteristic continuous wave beacon at 153.660 MHz. After 1994 the Strela-3 replaced both the Strela-1M and Strela-2M in service.
******SKIP******
The hermetically sealed compartment had the equipment mounted in cruciform bays, with the chemical batteries protecting the radio and guidance equipment mounted at the centre. In service Strela-2M exhibited a lifetime of 24 to 36 months.
******SKIP******
1993 June 16 - Cosmos 2251 - Program: Strela. Launch Site: Plesetsk. Launch Complex: LC132/1. Launch Vehicle: Kosmos 3. Mass: 900 kg (1,980 lb). Perigee: 778 km (483 mi). Apogee: 803 km (498 mi). Inclination: 74.00 deg. Period: 100.70 min.
Replaced Cosmos 2112.

All the info I have found points to the Russian satellite as being the deactivated Cosmos 2251 that was launched in 1993, not a top secret, state of the art spy satellite.

[edit on 2/14/2009 by Keyhole]

but do you think if it was a secret spy surveillance sat that they would tell us they where putting it into space or that it was just an ordinary communication sat.. a sat that was spoiling some other country's plans of putting missiles into Poland \ or moving troops in Georgia and thus had to be destroyed in a so called accident..

Originally posted by violet
You learn something new everyday. I always thought a meteorite was a natural object.

Hi violet,

This subject is a bit of a terminology mine-field, and you just stepped on one That's ok... Easily done if you have never seen a 'map'.

Just to clarify, for everyone reading this:

A meteoroid is defined as a small body, traveling through space.

A meteor is the luminous phenomenon that we see when a meteoroid enters our atmosphere.

A meteorite is any piece of a meteoroid that makes it to the ground.

Originally posted by violet
I witnessed a fireball last summer, beautiful sight,

They are spectacular, aren't they!

I was lucky enough to witness a whole night, from midnight onwards, were fireballs (brighter than Venus) appeared every minute or so, sometimes bursts or 3 or 4 in a minute. Some were bright enough to light up the sky/ground at least as bright as the full moon, with the occasional flash seeming closer to bright day-light.

After more than 6 hours of this, it was getting light, and I could still see fireballs in the sky! Unfortunately, everybody else had been expecting the peak of the Leonids in November 1998 to be the following night, so I was very lucky to happen to look, and see what I saw. That's what sparked my interest in this subject.

Watch around the peaks of any major meteor showers, and you stand a good chance of seeing some fireballs, especially with showers like the Leonids in November and the Perseids in August, which are known for their spectacular fireballs. I'm guessing that you probably saw a Perseid fireball, but without more info it's hard to tell for sure.

Originally posted by violet
I didn't hear a sonic boom with this one.

That is the norm with fireballs up to a certain brightness. The vast majority of mid-range in brightness (-8 to about -14) fireballs are caused by cometary meteoroids. Cometary material is relatively fragile and has a density similar to cigarette ash.

Many of the larger sized (about the size of a small grain of rice and upwards) cometary meteoroids that cause fireballs explode due to their fragility and high relative velocity/traumatic entry into the atmosphere. Something the size of a large marble is easily capable of lighting up the surrounding area like it's broad daylight, but unless it made out of tough material (ie not cometary) and quite big, it will not be heard.

This all down to the relative speed between the meteoroid and Earth, which in the case of cometary material is usually very high since meteoroids and their parent bodies (comets) tend to travel in the opposite direction to us, so they slam into us, rather than having to catch up with us, which is the case with most asteroids.

Where as asteroidal material tends to enter our atmosphere at relative velocities in the range of around 15-30 km/s (with a minimum of about 10km/s) since it has to catch up with us, cometary meteoroids tend to slam into us, so Leonids (comet Tempel-Tuttle) for example, enter the atmosphere at 74 km/s, and the vast majority of meteoroids belonging to cometary meteor showers enter with velocities above 25 km/s (there may be some exceptions - I'll have to look into it), and usually much higher (50+ km/s).

With experience, you can often tell if a meteor is cometary or asteroidal in origin In some borderline cases, it's not always easy. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing as the saying goes, and true to form, the actual velocity of a meteor can be hard to gauge due to the effects of perspective, even for very experienced observers, in cases where a meteor is of unknown origin. There are some simple rules that help meteor observers work out the true speed of a meteor, but they are only useful if the meteor origin is known/if it belongs to a known meteor shower.

Getting back on topic though, since asteroidal material is harder stuff (rocks/metal), and not slamming into the atmosphere at high speeds, it has a much better chance of making it lower down into the atmosphere, where sonic booms can propagate/be heard.

These are fairly few and far between compared to cometary fireballs, which are 'ablated' (or 'burn up' though burning is technically the wrong word for this process), long before they get anywhere close to the ground (~90-100 km altitude).

I personally have never heard a sonic boom from a fireball, and I've seen one or two in my time.

Originally posted by violet
I had read in the thread some had said they saw the light coming down, saw it hit the ground and the sonic boom, flames were seen through the trees and fire trucks were on the scene (yes - it could have been someone making up the story). Then another report in a news story said a plane had crashed in this area, then recanted the story saying no plane had crashed. Now we have them saying it was a meteor, which it could very well have been.

That happens every time there is a bright fireball that occurs at a time of day when people are around to see it, since it can be seen from a great distance, and many people do not understand, that even though a fireball can seem to be very low down in the atmosphere, it more than likely is not.



Simply put, meteoroids that make it down to the ground whilst still luminous, would have to be pretty large/hard, and those are exceptional events, with the potential to do some serious damage.

There is a link between fireballs and meteorites, but in reality, very few fireballs produce meteorites, and ones that hit the ground luminous are possibly once in a generation events. We have had a couple of close scrapes though, like the time a large Earth-grazing meteoroid passed within 57 km of the surface of the Earth at 20:29 UTC on August 10, 1972. Edit to add: Even this relatively large object would not have been luminous had it impacted, so it wasn't that much of a close call.

Here's footage of that event:


The vast majority of meteorites are slowed down to the point where they are no longer luminous, after which they continue to fall deeper in the atmosphere and may well produce booms whilst in this non-luminous phase known as the 'dark flight'. They have usually been slowed to free fall velocity long before they hit the ground, and spend a good minute or three falling unseen to the human eye.

This page explains in a bit more depth.

[edit on 14-2-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

reply to post by violet

Your NOTAM is for real:
tfr.faa.gov...

Plus, found this scary article by a Russian expert:

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
Hi violet,

This subject is a bit of a terminology mine-field, and you just stepped on one

That's ok... Easily done if you have never seen a 'map'.

Originally posted by violet
I witnessed a fireball last summer, beautiful sight,

They are spectacular, aren't they!

I was lucky enough to witness a whole night, from midnight onwards, were fireballs (brighter than Venus) appeared every minute or so, sometimes bursts or 3 or 4 in a minute. Some were bright enough to light up the sky/ground at least as bright as the full moon, with the occasional flash seeming closer to bright day-light.

After more than 6 hours of this, it was getting light, and I could still see fireballs in the sky! Unfortunately, everybody else had been expecting the peak of the Leonids in November 1998 to be the following night, so I was very lucky to happen to look, and see what I saw. That's what sparked my interest in this subject.

Watch around the peaks of any major meteor showers, and you stand a good chance of seeing some fireballs, especially with showers like the Leonids in November and the Perseids in August, which are known for their spectacular fireballs. I'm guessing that you probably saw a Perseid fireball, but without more info it's hard to tell for sure.

Thanks for the interesting info on meteors. I always wondered why I'd see the different terms. You were lucky to have observed the fireball show.

I saw the leonoid showers last fall, or the occasional shooting or falling star and they're amazing as well, but the fireballs are really a rare chance to see, as some may never witness one. I've only seen this one. I was in awe and thought "wow, that's a fireball!". I'd imagined they'd look different.

I submitted my sighting to an American Meteor/fireball Log and they sent an email back telling me what it was determined to be, all I recall is it was a "zenith" with an number attached to that. I had to fill in so many "questions", and try to figure out the degrees, brightness, colours, time, my location, how long it lasted, what kind of tail, etc.

I only caught it by chance, out on my back deck late at night, I just glanced up before going in and there it was. It didn't appear to "land", it just arced for those few seconds, before rapidly fading out into nothingness. It appears as if something exploded and was flaming past very quickly. It was around june or july 2008 I saw this. It's surprising what you'll actually see if you take the time to look up.

Originally posted by tuppence2
reply to post by violet

 

Your NOTAM is for real:
tfr.faa.gov...

Thanks for that.
I tried finding the FAA source but was unsuccessful. I wasn't sure how reliable the examiner news site was, esp when they added the april fools / friday the 13th comment, I sort of wondered if it was a prank

...........

Re: the Alberta close call event, this was evidentally from another Russian rocket and not the one that collided.

NORAD to Calgary: Watch out for space debris

CTV

[edit on 15-2-2009 by violet]

Originally posted by lewtra
Yikes,If this artist's impression is close to reality.

It wont be long until we witness a major disaster.Forget the tinfoil hats get the 20mm thick armour plated ones.

Lewtra

Man, if that picture is truly reflective of reality, then it’s a wonder that we don’t have many more such collisions. Seems that in their rush to fill our skies with all this crap, they may have destined us to having permanent waves of space junk raining down. Just between us, I think we need a return to a more natural science.

science.nasa.gov...

Check this out! This is the NASA satellite tracker, how cool, anyway you open the JAVA app. and you see the earth with all tracked satellites and you can zoom in, click on any (dot) satellite to see it's name and orbit. It is called J-Track 3-D.

More news from NASA:
Green Comet Approaches Earth 02.04.2009
In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life--a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named "Hale" and "Bopp" had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day.


The comet makes its closest approach to Earth (0.41 AU) on Feb. 24, 2009. Current estimates peg the maximum brightness at 4th or 5th magnitude, which means dark country skies would be required to see it. No one can say for sure, however, because this appears to be Lulin's first visit to the inner solar system and its first exposure to intense sunlight. Surprises are possible.


Lulin's green color comes from the gases that make up its Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Jets spewing from the comet's nucleus contain cyanogen (CN: a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C2). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space.

In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley. False alarm: The wispy tail of the comet couldn't penetrate Earth's dense atmosphere; even it if had penetrated, there wasn't enough cyanogen to cause real trouble. Comet Lulin will cause even less trouble than Halley did. At closest approach in late February, Lulin will stop 38 million miles short of Earth, utterly harmless.

To see Comet Lulin with your own eyes, set your alarm for 3 am. The comet rises a few hours before the sun and may be found about 1/3rd of the way up the southern sky before dawn. Here are some dates when it is especially easy to find:

Feb. 6th: Comet Lulin glides by Zubenelgenubi, a double star at the fulcrum of Libra's scales. Zubenelgenubi is not only fun to say (zuBEN-el-JA-newbee), but also a handy guide. You can see Zubenelgenubi with your unaided eye (it is about as bright as stars in the Big Dipper); binoculars pointed at the binary star reveal Comet Lulin in beautiful proximity. [sky map]

Feb. 16th: Comet Lulin passes Spica in the constellation Virgo. Spica is a star of first magnitude and a guidepost even city astronomers cannot miss. A finderscope pointed at Spica will capture Comet Lulin in the field of view, centering the optics within a nudge of both objects. [sky map]

Feb. 24th: Closest approach! On this special morning, Lulin will lie just a few degrees from Saturn in the constellation Leo. Saturn is obvious to the unaided eye, and Lulin could be as well. If this doesn't draw you out nothing will.




PS can someone tell me how to upload pics?? Thanks Tina

reply to post by violet


If they followed up your report, then it probably wasn't a Perseid meteor as I thought (for some reason I thought you said it was August when you saw it).

You'll definitely see more if you keep watching the sky (especially during the Leonids etc as I said before), though every fireball/meteor is different, and, what you saw would probably not look exactly the same as a Leonid fireball for instance. If you didn't see anything during the Leonids that approaches the fireball you saw, that's sometimes the case, in a weak year, or if you don't look at the right time. There is always a bit of luck involved, but by watching them every year, you'll soon cut down the odds.

The word 'zenith' that you mentioned actually refers to the 'highest' or 'point directly overhead', in the sky. It's nothing directly to do with the origin of the meteor, although it is often used to describe where in the sky an object appears to be from the observer's perspective.

Originally posted by violet
From NOAA

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
1221 AM EST SAT FEB 14 2009

...DEBRIS FALLING FROM SATELLITES CRASHING IN ORBIT...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LOUISVILLE KENTUCKY HAS RECEIVED PHONE CALLS OF LIGHTS IN THE SKY AND VIBRATIONS SIMILAR TO EARTHQUAKES FELT ACROSS THE LEXINGTON METRO AREA. ACCORDING TO NASA...THIS IS LIKELY DUE TO TWO SATELLITES COLLIDING IN ORBIT. NASA HAS INDICATED THAT AN AMERICAN SATELLITE AND RUSSIAN SATELLITE COLLIDED IN ORBIT JUST THIS PAST TUESDAY. THE LIGHTS SEEN IN THE SKY ARE PIECES OF DEBRIS FROM THE COLLISION...AND THE VIBRATIONS FELT ARE THE SONIC BOOMS CAUSED BY THE FALLING DEBRIS.

NOAA

on another forum I read the same thing happened in central Texas this morning.... aircraft and ground crews first thought it may of been a plane crash/// sonic booms and debri has been reported.

[edit on 15-2-2009 by imitator]

Update:

Report: Satellite Debris Falls from Texas Sky
www.foxnews.com...

An FAA spokesman attributed reports of fireballs, explosions, and burning debris to a satellite collision that occurred on Tuesday, the station reported.

[edit on 15-2-2009 by imitator]

reply to post by Zeptepi


My wife and I both saw flaming debris at approximately 10:45AM Central time. The debri was falling at an extreme pace and was flaming. We both saw shiny metal and orange/red flames. It was traveling in a North Western direction over what appeared to be Cedar Park Texas (30 miles north of central Austin).

Oddly, I was on the golf course and she was at home. I walked in the door and she told me she saw the strangest thing. I interrupted her and said "Flaming objects in the sky?". She said, "yes, how did you know!?" Pretty amazing... maybe we should play lotto tonigh?