[meteorite-list] Washington State bolide

Matson, Robert ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com
Sat Jun 5 05:49:38 EDT 2004


Hi All,

I spent about 3 hours this evening doing trajectory calculations
for the bolide that exploded over western Washington state and
have made an important discovery that should help focus search
efforts.  Is there a scientist P.O.C. at U of W handling the
analysis of the seismic data?  I've found something hiding in
the PNSN data that ultimately reveals the flight-path azimuth,
and with further number crunching may also narrow down the
possibilities for the angle of attack.

There's good news and there's bad news.  The good news is that
the angle of attack appears to be much shallower than has been
reported -- less than 20 degrees by my calculations, and probably
less than 15 degrees.  This improves the chances that something
survived passage.  The bad news is that my trajectory results
in a rather difficult recovery area -- heavily forested.

--Rob




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