Oct. 19, 2012

Michael Mewhinney
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. 
650-604-4789
michael.s.mewhinney@nasa.gov

Karen Randall
SETI Institute
650-960-4537
krandall@seti.org

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-75

NASA, SETI INSTITUTE ASK PUBLIC FOR METEOR VIDEOS AND PHOTOS



Image from security camera footage at Lick Observatory. 
Image credit: Lick Observatory





Preliminary trajectory calculated by Peter Jenniskens from Sunnyvale 
and San Mateo College Observatory CAMS video data.
Image from: http://cams.seti.org

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. – NASA and the SETI Institute are asking the 
public to check their video security camera footage around 7:44 p.m. 
PDT Wednesday night, in the hope it recorded the meteor that 
illuminated the sky over the Bay Area and created sonic booms. That 
video may help researchers study how the meteor broke during descent. 


The fireball was filmed by two stations of NASA's Cameras for All-sky 
Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) project, located in Sunnyvale and at the 
San Mateo College Observatory. The calculated trajectory shows that 
meteorites may have fallen just north of San Pablo Bay, along a band 
stretching east of San Rafael towards Sonoma and Napa, a mostly 
agricultural area. 

"This was a slow moving fireball, which greatly increases the chances 
that a significant fraction of it and somewhat larger pieces 
survived," said meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens, of the SETI 
Institute. A map of the fireball’s trajectory and the general area 
where the search would commence can be found at the CAMS website. To 
report video and photographic records, please visit: 

http://cams.seti.org
Media interested in interviewing Jenniskens are asked to contact Karen 
Randall of the SETI Institute at 650-960-4537. For more information 
about NASA Ames, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ames
For more information about the SETI Institute, visit:

http://www.seti.org

	
-end-