[meteorite-list] Meteor Rocks Missouri Residents
Ron Baalke baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.govMon Jun 21 13:50:07 EDT 2004
http://freeinternetpress.com/article.pl?sid=04/06/20/0542230&mode=thread Car-Sized Meteor Rocks Missouri Residents Free Internet Press June 19, 2004 Paul Kesterson was getting ready for work Friday morning when two thunderous explosions a split second apart rocked the sky above his home. "It was loud enough to shake the house and rattle the windows," said Kesterson, owner of Marshfield TV and Electronics. "The dog's probably still hiding." The rural Webster County man rushed outside, not sure what he'd find. "There was a smoke trail in the sky, but it wasn't straight," he said. "It kind of came down at an angle, like a jet contrail that the wind had distorted." The Webster County Sheriff's Department fielded nearly 20 phone calls from area residents around 9:20 a.m., concerned something had blown up. Dispatchers checked with area quarries, which reported no blasting activity. And no supersonic aircraft were in the skies above Webster County, according to Springfield airport and Fort Leonard Wood officials. NASA scientist Mike Mumma said the likely culprit was a "sizable" meteor ripping apart as it blasted through the atmosphere at 100,000 mph. "From the description of buildings and windows shaking, that's a fairly significant sonic boom," said Mumma, chief scientist of planetary research at Goddard Research Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It would have been much larger than fist-sized to make that loud of a noise and generate that much energy. I couldn't speculate how big, though." Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object monitoring program in Pasadena, Calif., said a meteor that shakes homes and windows could have been the size of a small car.
[meteorite-list] Sonic Boom Over Missouri Was Fighter Jet, Not Exploding Meteorite
Ron Baalke baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.govMon Jun 28 00:15:42 EDT 2004
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/9020808.htm? Loud noise was sonic boom, not exploding meteorite Associated Press June 26, 2004 HARTVILLE, Mo. - The object that produced a loud boom over Webster County came not from outer space - but from St. Louis. Some NASA experts thought that the boom, heard - and felt - on the morning of June 19, was the sound of a meteorite exploding in the atmosphere. It turned out to be a sonic boom, from a new F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet on a test flight from the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis. "He was flying high - over 40,000 feet - and was testing the plane to get to Mach 1," said Boeing spokesman Jim Keller. "We checked and he had gone supersonic at 9:14 a.m." All new F/A-18 jets undergo similar supersonic tests before delivery, Keller said. "They're being tested regularly, under the control of FAA flight controllers in Kansas City," he said. The explanation satisfied scientists' curiosity - and prompted one Hartsville resident to fire off an angry letter to Gov. Bob Holden. "When these aircraft do this it causes my windows to crack," Mary Katzenberger wrote. "I (also have) windows that had small cracks that are much larger because of this. My dear old dog was throwing up all day from it. Our neighbor's cattle stampeded ..." "If, Dear Gov., you can find some way of stopping this dangerous use of our fighting aircraft, I with many other residents of the city and county of Hartville will be very grateful to you." Katzenberger told the Springfield News-Leader she heard a similar boom in February. "We have a lot of Amish families out here, and a lot of women drive those horse-drawn buggies," she said. "You don't want to spook their horses with a sonic boom." Holden's office received the letter but had no immediate response. But Keller, the Boeing spokesman, said the tests are necessary. "It's kind of the price of freedom," he said. "We build these planes and we have to test them. Sonic booms come with the territory."
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