What just went over Perth?

[Rod-AR127]

Stuck my head out if the shed just in time to see a huge green fireball with orange bits coming off the tail.
No idea if it was from outer space or man made but it sure as hell wasn't a flare.
Guess I'll have to watch the news and find out.
Came from the east and headed SW and burnt out low.
It was amazing.

[ChrisD]

As far as I know only 3 satellites were ever launched into a retrograde (east to west) orbit. This would suggest that it is very unlikely to be man made.

Chris

[Stonius]

Interesting point - what was the reason they did that?

[ChrisD]

I thought Israel had only launched one satellite retrograde but it turn out I was wrong. They launched 7. They did this so that the first stage would drop into the Mediterranean and not scare their neighbours to the east. The Americans launched 2 satellites retrograde, not sure why.

[astro744]

Likely meteor/meteorite. It is not unusual for green/orange colours and coming from the east is the direction the Earth is moving. It is possible some fragments hit the ground but often they are grains of sand in size and simply burn up. If it broke up it was likely larger but still could have totally disintegrated.

[Hans Tucker]

Have you seen any of these in the area post event?

[ChrisD]

I'm betting covid kills them.

[Pepper]

https://www.9news.com.au/world/man-photographs-green-meteor-in-new-zealand-night-sky/c204445d-e730-4440-9970-0aec0b23cee1

[ChrisD]

On a side note, quite a lot of sand size and larger micrometeorites make it to the ground. Some fall on roofs and end up in the guttering sludge. There are a few youtube videos where people successfully pan the sludge and use a magnet to separate out the iron micrometeorites.

Wait... if I can get the grandkids interested maybe I can "Tom Sawyer" them into cleaning my gutters :)

Chris

[Rod-AR127]

I knew I wasn't dreaming.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/man-photographs-green-meteor-in-new-zealand-night-sky/c204445d-e730-4440-9970-0aec0b23cee1

I haven't looked at the link in the previous post yet, guessing it's the same.

Edit. I have now. What l saw must have been one of the last fragments.
It was cloudy and so it was well below cloud level and burnt out.
Seriously green and amazing.

[ChrisD]

Rod, what was the local time in Perth when you saw it?

[Rod-AR127]

About the same time as the NZ sighting.
I was in the shed sanding my boat, went to stoke the open fire and stuck my head out the door to see a bloody big green chunk burning out, orange sparks coming of its tail. Low and slow.
Can't believe it didn't make the news here.
I even ran inside and bored the missus for five minutes about it.

[ChrisD]

It was captured on dash cam in Perth
https://youtu.be/bZNxecxtx6Q

and the Perth Observatory got it on a south facing camera.
293402

It flew over you at 20:02 so couldn't be the same NZ meteor, which was 4 hours earlier, but must be related.

Must have looked awesome Rod. Wish I'd been there to see it.

Chris

[Rod-AR127]

Yay, awesome!
Thank goodness it wasn't a flare.
Seriously green but had deep orange bits falling out of the tail.
Now I'm all excited again, can't wait to bore the wife with it some more.
Thanks for posting up the link. :thumbsup: