[meteorite-list] Meteor Awes Arizona Residents

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/1004ar-meteor1004Z14.html

Meteor awes Foothills residents
JJ Hensley
The Arizona Republic
October 4, 2006

Jeff Hartman was just out for a night of relaxing stargazing with his
new telescope Sunday night, but he didn't need that visual amplifier to
witness the biggest news in the sky that evening.

The fireball, an extremely bright meteor, streaking across the sky
caught the attention of Hartman, an Ahwatukee Foothill video-game
programmer, and countless others throughout the western United States.

Hartman used to work at the Tomchin Planetarium and Observatory at West
Virginia University, so unlike many observers, he didn't mistake the
fireball for a wayward piece of space trash or a downed plane.

"It was very impressive," Hartman said of the unexpected sight viewed
from a park near 44th Street and Ray Road. "It was probably the width of
a human hand per second across the sky."

Nikki Diamantopoulos saw the same thing as she ate dessert in her
Ahwatukee backyard Sunday evening.

"It was probably the biggest shooting star I'd ever seen," she said.
"And I did hope it wasn't anything worse."

Worried residents called police and fire departments.

It turns out Arizonans weren't alone in witnessing the fireball as it
hurtled through the night sky.

Residents in New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas reported similar
sightings shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday. Another was reported in
Washington State a short time earlier.

A group that tracks such events found the early October increase in
meteor activity follows a pattern.

In October 1996, Mark Boslough, a New Mexico resident who tracks
incidents, received reports from Texas, California and New Mexico of
large meteors. A few years before that, the same pattern emerged along
the East Coast, and in October 1998, the same pattern was repeated in El
Paso.

"It is possible that early October may be the time of an annual meteor
shower, but with bigger meteors," Boslough said.