17 February 2009

Closing in on the Texas Meteorite Strewnfield??? 18FEB09

"Alright I agree that the Austin, Waco, Dallas event was one event and was not satellite debris." ...
The radar tracks you referenced are great Ed. They show any meteorites would have landed about 5 kilometers SE of Lake Whitney. Although the altitude differences cause a large spread over the possible impact zone. The Fort Worth Radar (which I can see from my house) would have imaged the one on the right first and the one on the left second. The Granger radar would have imaged the lower altitude first and the higher altitude second, so yes it would have been a reflection off an Ionization trail. The images would have been about a second and 6 degs of scan apart. My belief they were separate parts of something come from early reports from McKinney saying it was seen in the north. In the police dash cam from plano it appears to be going north to south in a more vertical direction and very high in the sky. Reports from Denton also put it very high in the sky (still confused about how this could be). The Austin video was suppose to be taken looking north giving a fall area around Marble Falls. So it must have been taken NE or ENE to give the low trajectory and east to west appearance. There is no way an object 9,000 feet off the ground can be seen from 120 miles away, so it must have been over Hearn area from the Austin video. It would be interesting to hear more reports from the Whitney, West, Mart area to try and determine if there are any possible meteorites from this one.
Not likely to start any search parties like the Canadian bolide did though....

Source: Pat Branch, TX, USA

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