[meteorite-list] Fiery, Smoking Object Crashes in Iran

[Chris Peterson]

Well, I wouldn't describe Sikhote-Alin as a "smoking object" exactly. 
More of a low altitude fragmentation of a massive object. If something 
like that happened in Iran, it would be pretty obvious.

Clearly, plenty of falls have been preceded by witnessed fireballs that 
produced smoke trails. The "informed source" was obviously incorrect if 
this sort of smoking is what he had in mind. But if the report was a 
meteor that smoked to the ground, and was on fire- well, I'd have to 
agree that it's very, very unlikely a meteor was involved. I couldn't 
really tell from the report what was being described.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fiery, Smoking Object Crashes in Iran

>>Meantime, an informed source told that the object has been on fire and
>>there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash,
>>concluding that the object couldn't have been a meteor as meteors do 
>>not
>>smoke.
>
> I guess this informed source never heard of the Sikhote-Alin fall.
>
> Ron Baalke