From: "Wayne Watson" <sierra_mtnview@earthlink.net>
To: "Dave Kenyon" <dkenyon@starstream.net>
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 2:56 PM

  Subject: Where The Debris Is  
  
  Robert Matson's latest (last night) calculations suggest the likely debris would have
  hit the earth somewhere around Blue Canyon! That's from an off the top of the head
  guess from the info below. However, it is unlikely that anything really made it to
  the earth. He's revisiting the data with the help of a space debris guy. Here's an
  excerpt from his latest on the subject:

  > Just finished running the numbers and have computed a 3-D track
  > that matches your observations.  It's late, so I need to double-
  > check my math, but it looks like you must have observed a satellite
  > reentry.  I computed a velocity of only around 7.7 km/sec -- far
  > too slow for a meteor, but the perfect speed for a reentering
  > piece of space debris!  I'll get you the full details of the
  > track tomorrow, but for now I can tell you that it was travelling
  > toward azimuth 137.5 at a slope of 56 degrees from horizontal.
  > The impact point (if it had continued in a straight line, which
  > of course it didn't) would have been about 47 km east of you,
  > and 29 km south.  When you acquired it, it was at an altitude
  > of around 66 km, and it burned out at an altitude of around 34.5
  > km.
  >
  > --Rob



SENT 7/14/04
  
Hi David,


In case you're interested, your video picked up the bolide at an initial altitude 
of 80.3 km and a velocity of roughly 14.8 km/sec.  It remained visible down to an 
altitude of ~36 km, by which point the velocity had slowed below 7 km/sec.


Cheers,
Rob