Russian SL-4 Rocket

It happened as I was driving home from Jo's house in the pre-dawn hours Thursday morning. I was planning on taking the morning to nurse my newly acquired cold. My morning drowsiness didn't stop me from noticing how pretty the huge full moon was as it set behind the snow covered Flat Irons. Molly seemed to notice too and was resting her head on the seatback. Just as I turned out of Jo's neighborhood I noticed a firework off to the right. Logically it couldn't be a firework, who would be shooting fireworks at this hour? It was moving too slow to be a shooting star, I could only guess it was some type of meteorite in the lower atmosphere. It took almost 30 seconds to move across my view of the front range and stood out brightly against the backdrop of a full moon and snow lit mountains. I could easily see it breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces. It reminded me of footage of the space shuttle Columbia as it broke apart on re-entry in 2003. As I got home my cold overcame the excitement of the moment and I was asleep within 10 minutes. When I woke up I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that it wasn't a meteorite, it was moving too slowly. In the news clip below a Fox News meteorologist reports it was a meteorite, but it later was reported as a Russian SL-4 Rocket body re-entering the atmosphere.



The Russian rocket had carried a French astronomy satellite into space on December 27, 2006. NORAD also picked up the debris and scrambled fighters. A large piece of the rocket was found near Highway 28 in Riverton, WY. The piece that I saw continued as far south as Kirtland, NM. For the news story click Here.