Six meteorites have already been recovered in Mississippi after a bolide disintegrated on April 27 in the skies of the southern United States.
Fireball :
On Wednesday, April 27, 2022, in the early morning, many residents of the town of Natchez in Mississippi attended an astonishing spectacle. A fireball ten times brighter than the Full Moon has disintegrated in the sky. Several dozen witnesses sent a sighting report to theAmerican Meteor Society.
This association has drawn up a map (above) with the position of the observers (distributed in the states of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana) and the trajectory of the bolide (blue arrow).
Meteor hunt:
Images from four weather radars installed in the region kept track of the phenomenon. In five minutes, these installations recorded eleven radar echoes corresponding to passages of meteorites. Many people also reported hearing gunshots. Sonic booms produced by falling meteorites at high speed.
Very quickly, meteorite researchers mobilized. The doctor Marc Fries, a planetary scientist, quickly arrived on the scene with his wife Linda. It was she who made the first discovery during the day (photos above), her husband making the second before nightfall. Other meteor hunters arrived the following days. So far, six chondrites (the largest weighing 145 grams) were collected.
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