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Science Forum Index » Astro - Amateur Forum » Meteor - Ho Chi Minh
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| Nige Danton |
 Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 5:33 pm |
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Last night at about 1900 hours local time there was a huge meteor over
Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam. I've seen plenty of meteors in the past
but this was huge, many orders of magnitude larger than anything I've
seen before. It was moving very fast approximately west to east and
there was two *extremely* loud bangs one essentially as it passed over
overhead and the second about half to one second later. The second
bang was much louder than the first. Unfortunately a building
obstructed the view and so I'm wondering if the second bang was the
meteor striking the ground? It really was extremely loud and the
neighbourhood went very quiet afterwards. Is there anywhere on the web
where I check to see if there have been any reports about it?
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Nige Danton |
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| Chris L Peterson |
| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 12:17 am |
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On Fri, 2 May 2008 20:33:06 -0700 (PDT), Nige Danton
<Nige.Danton@gmail.com> wrote:
Quote: Last night at about 1900 hours local time there was a huge meteor over
Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam. I've seen plenty of meteors in the past
but this was huge, many orders of magnitude larger than anything I've
seen before. It was moving very fast approximately west to east and
there was two *extremely* loud bangs one essentially as it passed over
overhead and the second about half to one second later. The second
bang was much louder than the first. Unfortunately a building
obstructed the view and so I'm wondering if the second bang was the
meteor striking the ground? It really was extremely loud and the
neighbourhood went very quiet afterwards. Is there anywhere on the web
where I check to see if there have been any reports about it?
I haven't heard any other reports of this. Your description in both
interesting and hard to explain. Meteors, while still burning, are
typically 20 miles high or more. A few may penetrate as low as 10 miles
or so, but that's still about a sound-minute away. In other words,
people report hearing sounds like you describe only after the fireball
has passed- usually several minutes later. There's a rare type of noise
called electrophonic- poorly understood but presumed to be caused by
transduced electromagnetic radiation. But it's nearly always reported as
a crackling noise, not a bang.
Meteorite impacts occur a few minutes after the fireball phase, and
don't typically produce any noise to speak of. So I doubt you heard an
impact. An impact that was nearly simultaneous with a fireball would
imply a hypersonic event. That would be crater forming, and could hardly
go without notice in Ho Chi Minh City!
The event you describe happened over a densely populated area at an
early hour of the evening. If it was a meteor, it must have been widely
witnessed. Have you seen any local news reports?
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com |
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| Nige Danton |
| Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 5:44 pm |
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On May 3, 12:17 pm, Chris L Peterson <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
Quote: The event you describe happened over a densely populated area at an
early hour of the evening. If it was a meteor, it must have been widely
witnessed. Have you seen any local news reports?
I haven't seen any reports but I will ask some Vietnamese colleagues
on Monday. These were undoubtedly bangs rather than "crackles" and
really extremely loud. My field of view was about 25 to 35 degrees of
the sky and I could clearly see what looked like the meteor burning
up. It was going very fast and so it extremely brief but spectacular
all the same. I'll report back if any of my colleagues have seen
anything. Interesting website btw.
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Nige Danton |
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| Nige Danton... |
| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 1:34 pm |
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On May 4, 10:44 am, Nige Danton <Nige.Dan... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
Quote: all the same. I'll report back if any of my colleagues have seen
anything. Interesting website btw.
I asked around in the office but nobody knows anything about it.
Astonishing.
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Nige Danton |
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