Object seen to enter earth's atmosphere

From: Robert Holdsworth (robbonz1@xtra.co.nz)
Date: Tue Apr 03 2012 - 01:28:00 UTC

  • Next message: Robert Holdsworth: "Re: Object seen to enter earth's atmosphere"

    At approximately 0639 UTC as I disembarked from a bus I noticed to the south in the dusk sky a marked and somewhat confused looking trail at about 60 degrees elevation.
    
    There have been numerous other reported sightings, and the following is one of several press articles:
    
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6681706/Glowing-ball-seen-in-NZ-skies
    
    Interestingly Shenzhou 8 Module was due to pass between Australia and New Zealand at about the time and decayed close to then, but it was not expected to be visible from New Zealand.
    
    Also from what I saw the trail was closer to East-West.  My first thought at the time was a firing of rocket or satellite engines as the trail from my perspective appeared to go upward rather than downward, but the reports all indicate that whatever it was came down.
    
    My location at the time was 41.9 South, 174.9 East.
    
    It seems that it may be coincidence that the sighting was close to the time of re-entry of the Shenzhou module, so it would most likely have been a meteor, but any thoughts as to whether or not the orbit could have changed purposefully or otherwise would be of interest, though the possible east-west direction goes against that.   I am at present not in a position to access any orbit prediction programs to feed Space-Track TLEs into them, but I used Calsky to determine that the pass should have been too far to the west. However it also gives me a perfectly circular orbit at that time at the height of the atmosphere..
    
    
    
    Robert
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