The BOOM was a…
March 30th, 2009 at 5:00 pm by Cheryl Nelson under Weather
…part of a Russian rocket. At least according to the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.. This article (click on the link to read it) was posted this afternoon. Take a look: http://www.space.com/news/090330-rocket-debris.html
The article was interesting to say the least. Sure it could have been a part of a rocket that fell from the sky around 9:40 PM Sunday. It also could have been a meteor (I’m not going to rule that out). We may never really know for sure. My question is this: if the “rocket junk” was expected to enter the Earth’s atmosphere after 8 PM Sunday, why didn’t people know about it? Why weren’t public officals and other government agencies alerted (like the National Weather Service or the FAA)? WAVY-TV 10 and the National Weather Service made numerous calls and have been investigating since the incident since last night but we couldn’t get any concrete information. Sure, I’m sure that some astronomers and other people knew about the rocket, but why no “heads up” to the general public? I’ve seen “heads up” about satellite flybys that go un-noticed by most, but you’d think when something of this magnitude occurs, you’d want to make people aware of it. Even if it did harmlessly discinigrate or plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, it would have been nice to know ahead of time. This has become a bigger story because of the mystery and drama that was created by the unknown.
I didn’t see or hear the lights/boom, but I’m sure it was amazing. What are your thoughts?
Meteorologist Cheryl Nelson
WAVY/Fox 43 Meteorologist
I find it difficult to believe it is space debris. We seem to have two facts that are not compatable. To creat a “boom” that can be heard for such a great distance you need high speed and large mass. The sonic boom is created high in the astmosphere and from there it spreads to a very large area. On the other hand, it was witnessed to last for 8 seconds. A high velocity, high altitude impact would not last but for a second. The long visual sighting indicates a low speed re-entry consistant with a low level orbit.
The two do not agree. alara
I live in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Last night at around 9:40pm while traveling north in my car I saw what looked like a big fire ball with a trail of light behind it. The ball of light was falling out of the sky and headed toward the ground. After a few seconds the ball of light seem to just burn out as quickly as it appeared. Truely this is a sight I won’t soon forget! Hope to find out more
Was just viewing your live coverage and notice an bright object streaking across the sky during your broadcast. Did anyone else see it or was it just light reflecting off the lens. Please review the broadcast carefully near the end.
I believe it was space debris. We were headed back to Wmsbg from Ashland on 295 just before the Highland Springs RD. exit at 9:30pm last night. We saw what we thought was a meteorite dropping straight down onto the median strip. It was burning a very bright flame. We even saw smoke when it burnt out just above the tree line. If it was as close as it looked it was maybe the size of a melon. Anyway, for the record, there was more than on chunk.
I saw a flash of blue lights. then it looked like flare sparks then it was gone. what was this? we all want to know..
I don’t feel safe lately from “space debris”. There have been (2) unexpected incidents within the last 60 days. Who is watching the skies for us? I agree with Cheryl, we should have been warned!
Nice follow-up blog, and great idea to link to the space.com article. I like knowing that some scientists still keep up on these things!
Sunday night around 9:30 p.m. when I was leaving work (College of William and Mary) I traveled on Rt. 143 heading to York County to go home in Gloucester. I was talking with the Pastor’s wife when all of a sudden the sky got blue (as though it was turning into day) and to my left (you can see Interstate 64) I saw (what I thought was a very large meteor) an object that was shaped like an oblong thing with blue streak and then a little orange followed the blue. I thought maybe something caught on fire as it was entering the earth’s atmosphere. It went down between 143 and 64 just before getting to the jail that is on Rt. 143
After hearing about the space junk I feel 99% sure that was it and I agree that the public should always know about things like this. It would have saved an awful lot of phone calls to 911. If another big event would have happened at the same time we could have had problems with overloading the 911 system. This should have been a no brainer to notify the public and it should always be that way!
So no conspiracy theories yet? This just sounds like one of those things you’ll see on the history channel in like 30 years saying what it really was. If it was part of space debris how did it get moving fast enough to create a sonic boom? If it’s a meteor/asteroid or something why was there no warning, we have observatories all over the planet and satellites for just that purpose. I don’t have a good answer for what it was but the 2 options so far don’t make sense. This area is after all heavily populated with military installations, probably just a coincidence though.
like think of it this way…small enough to burn up before hitting us = not big enough to hear. so big that 3 states hear it + doesnt hit us = not a meteor
what is it?