“The fireball was visible for about 15 minutes ...” Um, then it was not a fireball, as in meteorite or meteor.
Still how can that space station be safe with all these rocks passing through our orbit.
From SpaceWeather.com:
Last night, around 10:05 pm CDT, sky watchers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri witnessed a brilliant green fireball streaking across the sky. Images from a rooftop webcam in Madison, Wisconsin, show a brilliant midair explosion:
PHOTOS:
http://www.spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Peter-Pokrandt-22_16_53.trig00_1271307234.jpg
Credit: University of Wisconsin - AOS/SSEC
The fireball was caused by a small asteroid hitting Earth's atmosphere at a shallow angle. Preliminary infrasound measurements place the energy of the blast at 20 tons of TNT (0.02 kton), with considerable uncertainty. Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office estimates that the space rock was about 1 meter wide and massed some 1260 kg. "Fireballs of this size are surprisingly common," he notes. "They hit Earth about 14 times a month, on average, although most go unnoticed because they appear during the day or over unpopulated areas."
Many readers have asked if fragments of the meteoroid might have reached Earth. The answer is yes. Cooke advises looking directly underneath the fireball's debris trail, which was pinged by National Weather Service radars in Iowa. Click here and here for maps.
