Unusually slow and long lasting meteor on 1 August 2015

By Richard Kacerek

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We are looking with interest at an unusually slow and long-lasting meteor which was captured on 1 August at 00:18.

It was perfectly framed by the Horley camera (operated by Chris Curtis) and also captured by one of the Wilcot cameras, one of the Ash Vale cameras and by Nick James (in Chelmsford) who is part of the Nemetode meteor network. We hope that other cameras will have caught it too, allowing a precise orbit to be calculated.

From Chelmsford camera

Initial calculations by Nick James suggest that the meteoroid had an orbit that stretched between the orbits of Earth and Mars and that the geocentric velocity was 6 km/s (or 13,400 mph)  but that is the velocity before the meteoroid was accelerated by the Earth’s gravity. The entry velocity was more like 13 km/s, unusually slow for a meteor because it was traveling in the same direction as the Earth and so “catching up”.

It was not a particularly bright meteor, but would have been a fine sight as it took almost 9 seconds to cross a large part of the sky. Its path took it from above the English Channel to the Thames Estuary.

From Horley South-East camera

From Wilcot East camera

From Ash Vale South camera

And also video from Richard Fleet’s Wilcot camera:

Additionally we also found a match on Clanfield North East camera:

Clanfield North East camera