Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Intensity of the Colorado/Utah Meteor's Flash

Shortly after the mega-meteor lit up the Colorado/Utah area, an article appeared on a local Salt Lake City news station's website that provided some interesting factoids about how the brightness of meteors relates to their proximity to earth.

The Colorado/Utah meteor (another video here) lit up an estimated 500,000 square miles, bright as day. That's spectacular! Although the light made it seem very close, the meteor was estimated to get only as close to SLC as 120 miles, and only 35 miles off the ground before it exploded.

The meteor was first captured on video about 300 miles away. It's estimated that the flash power is equivalent to trillions of watts of power. It's thought to have entered the atmosphere at about 50,000 miles an hour.

Photos taken the next morning show two apparent smoke rings, which may be an echo of the double flash or double explosion noticeable on some videos.

No comments:

Post a Comment