Bolide Over New Mexico
15 Sep 2007, 11:55 UTC: dateline 13 Sep 2007, at approximately 09:20 UTC, a number of observers of the New Mexico sky were treated to a bolide of immense proportions. The bright light produced by the bolide was measured at -14.6 magnitude on the visual light scale (approximately 4 times the brightness of a full Moon) by the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Sandia National Laboratory captured images of the bolide as it moved across Albuquerque's sky. The National Laboratory has released a QuickTime movie showing the movement and violent explosion of the New Mexican bolide. Readers may view the movie here. Sandia image of New Mexican Bolide. (QuickTime Movie 1,296 KB)
A QuickTime Viewer may be downloaded ,without cost to the reader, to view the Sandia Image from the Apple web site.
IMPORTANT NOTE to readers reviewing Ashcroft's tracing of the bolide (meteor-like) scatter event mentioned above. When you click on the link that takes you to Ashcroft's tracing, the pictorial will appear very quickly. The sound portion of the recording is played after a very long interval. Using a very fast computer and cable broadband connection to the Internet, it still took over a minute for the sound recording to begin playing. Without being warned about this, is highly likely that you may think that sound does not accompany the visible evidence of the bolide scatter communication mode in action. This sound and pictorial recording is a very impressive demonstration of meteor scatter communication. In the event presented, an ionized gas trail is produced by the burning up of space junk as it passes through the ionosphere. Radio waves from a distant transmitter are reflected off of the ionized gas trail and are carried to a point that is normally beyond the range of the transmitter.
A Unique Opportunity for Hams
Within the past month, amateur radio operators have been able to test their skills using meteor scatter communications during several recent meteor showers. The bolide in New Mexico, furnished an opportunity to use those same skills for bolide scatter communications. At least one amateur radio operator took advantage of this opportunity. Thomas Ashcraft, an amateur radio operator and an astronomer recorded a tracing of a radio wave's behavior at 83.250 MHz. Readers can view Ashcroft's tracing of the event. Ashcroft is expected to add to the information that he has already posted.