psychohistorian.org
Tagged as:
Astronomy, news, fireball, meteor.
Published:
2009 November 28 @14:48
Contributors:
Linda Jacobs
Willie Koorts
From Willie Koorts, the following exciting news:
"I just had a phone call from Linda Jacobs from Middelburg, Mpumalanga. They got woken up at 01h40 on Friday morning, 27 November 2009 by a loud thundering sound and a bright light. They thought it was a missile being fired. They did not see the source object, just the light and sound. Interestingly, they could not have been biased by last Saturday night's event since she was not aware if it.
"Their neighbours were similarly woken, causing them to sit up in bed. They had enough time to get up and saw the object fall nearby and set the veldt alight."
Willie notes that Linda could give no indication of the bearing in which the light was seen, other than stating it was "in the direction of the Stoffberg road and the old Meyer's bridge". Using MapSource, Willie determined that 'Meyer Street' is a road going out of Middelburg to Stoffberg, leaving Middelburg to the north-east.
Dr Claire Flanagan, director of the Johannesburg Planetarium, noted with interest that since the sound and light were experienced at the same time, the source could not have been very far away from the witness' location. Further, if the neighbours had time to wake up, get out of bed, and see it fall, the object must have been moving very slowly.
Kos Coronaios speculates that we're seeing more meteor activity than usual; he notes that on the previous morning (Nov 26) he saw three meteors brighter than magnitude –1.
If you experienced this event, please contact me with a description of what happened. Or, if you can think of a friend or colleague who may have witnessed it, please get in touch.
/ph
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