PDA

View Full Version here: : Green glow seen shooting across WA night sky


MikeyB
15-06-2020, 12:01 PM
I was interested to come across the below news item this morning, with its very cool amateur videos of a spectacular fireball over north-west WA last night:

https://www.9news.com.au/world/wa-asteroid-green-glow-captured-on-camera-as-2002-nn4-asteroid-passes-the-earth/0821475c-7120-4b9a-a35e-9d4d71fc9a77

However the article goes on to say:


Somebody has their wires very crossed - 2002 NN4 passed by Earth on 6th June and for all its size would have been invisible to the naked eye. This event is clearly an atmospheric burn, possibly space junk (the spent kick stage from Rocket Lab's 13th June Don't Stop Me Now launch perhaps?), although from the colour and lack of obvious fragmentation, it could also have been a nickel-iron meteor, I think.

gregbradley
15-06-2020, 03:10 PM
Yeah I laughed at that too. They said in the article astronomers believe it was N44 which passed a few million miles from Earth.

They must have a strange idea about high the Earth's atmosphere goes.

Greg.

Outcast
15-06-2020, 03:19 PM
ABC has a somewhat better article...

Apparently the jury is out on what it was exactly... definitely not an asteroid some 5.2 million km away though... LOL

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-15/green-glowing-space-object-filmed-over-pilbara/12355358

glend
15-06-2020, 04:19 PM
Well, SpaceX had just launched its latest crop of Starlink satellites (58 of them), along with three ride share cube says. It could be the second stage burning up on re-entry, or one of the sats that misfired on its orbit burn. It would not be the first time SpaceX stuff has created events over Australia.