Tons-sized asteroid (NASA says) or unofficially, a UFO, enters atmosphere over Arizona!

That title should draw in the UFO crowd, cause a big spike in blog ratings….  Maybe get some ads now, $$$$.

This just in,  about what really might have done it, created that strange, bright trail yesterday morning.

The article purports, too, that meteorites landed “north of Tucson.” Who knows what life forms might be on them….?

Here’s what the remnant trail looked like from Catalinaland about an hour or less after it entered the “atmosphere”, 60-100 miles above us:

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5:08 AM.
5:08 AM Looking north from Catalina.
5:08 AM Looking north from Catalina.  Zoomed view.  Looks like a “drunken” asteroid’s trail to me, or was it a spaceship circling around, taking a look at how we are doing on this planet? Well, they didn’t blow us up, take care of all the earth’s trouble spots, so I guess it wasn’t a spaceship with intelligent life, all powerful life. This trail does make you wonder how a trail can be so complicated falling into the atmosphere in a direct heading.   Is the wind really that complicated up there at 60 to 100 miles above the surface?  Well, of course, there’s virtually only molecules of “air” , constituent gases, at that height, not really what we think of as “air” and so maybe things can drift all around;  maybe, too,  the solar wind can push things to.  Oh, well.

At first I thought it was a rocket trail, which I have seen resulting from Vandenberg missle firings, having lived in southern Cal.  But then, upon further reflection, that couldn’t be right, considering our location, unless North Korea had done something after threatening us so many times with nuclear attacks (see p8 of the AZ Star about a month ago–not that important to be threatened with a nuke I guess if its on p8.)

Then, I thought maybe it was space debris, the Int. Space Station might have  fallen out of orbit.

Was finally relieved to hear that it was an asteroid, though if was a  bigger than “tens of tons” as NASA claims, it might have blown up all of Arizona.

Isn’t an asteroid calamity is what ended pretty much all life 65 million years ago when a giant one hit down there in the Yucatan area?

And, “hey” why didn’t we hear in advance that something tens of tons in mass was heading our way by our space monitoring folks?  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Well, there you have it.

Super Devil Hits Catalina (June 1st); no injuries reported

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Looks like it was in the Basha’s parking lot. Had a gorgeous perfectly formed tube a few seconds before I could get a shot off. “Jumping Castles” draw great dust devils, sometimes known as “dustnadoes” to them like mobile homes attract tornadoes.

 

 

 

 

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.

2 comments

  1. Yeah, and the Cloud Maven wonders why some of us don’t want to spend the summer in Arizona. With asteroids and meteorites crashing overhead it just seems to dangerous to me.

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