The night sky over the southeastern United States lit up an unusual object with a tail. Scientists believe that the so-burned piece of Soviet missiles, launched in 1973 with the intelligence objectives.
Residents of several south-eastern United States on Monday night watched the sky fall glowing object that I started falling apart.
View on the observation of the object passed the people of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Louisiana.
Object I am flying in the sky for about a minute, gradually falling apart into pieces. Some observers heard sonic booms. Many have taken this phenomenon for the fall of the meteorite, someone who is having fun on a night party, called the burning plane.
However, according to the low-speed entry into the atmosphere, experts Space Center, Marshall found that it was not a meteor, and the object of artificial origin, descended from orbit.
Later, it became clear that the direction of the intended flight path coincided fall of the Soviet booster rocket. November 2, 1973 from Plesetsk rocket “Molnia-M” into orbit intelligence apparatus “Cosmos-606″. This unit of the “Eye” is a grouping of the missile attack warning. The satellite was launched into orbit with an inclination vysokoelliptichnuyu 62.8 degrees, a perigee and apogee 626 39 360 km. He became the second spacecraft launched under this program, and has worked in orbit for eight months, after which he was put into a higher orbit.
However, the upper stage – “Block L” – the machine weight 1160 kg three decades continued to fly on an elongated orbit.
At the moment of perigee passage he gradually braked on the upper layers of the atmosphere until the fourth stage of the rocket did not become final approach to Earth. According to the US Strategic Command, the lead surveillance of all major space debris, the Soviet entry into the atmosphere of the upper stage was to take place a little earlier. However, the unit stayed in orbit longer, and entered the dense layers, burning, approximately 1:30 am Eastern Time US.
Usually, satellites and debris enter the atmosphere at an altitude of 100-120 km, the intense heat of the friction of air molecules. Destruction overload reaches 20 g, usually occurs at a height of about 80 km, in this case the object is divided into at least four parts.
Only the American Meteor Society received more than 130 reports of sightings of unusual “car”, the majority of people could see an object that is slowly falling apart, forming a bright tail, up to one minute. A resident of the town of Mountain Home Fish Caleb went for lunch and saw an unusual trace in the sky. “At first I thought it was a plane because the airport nearby Mountain Home. But it was faster and shine brighter than a plane, and I thought it was a meteor, “- said Fish the local TV people.
Several people reported hearing a sonic boom with a delay of 30 to 90 seconds. There are reports that two seismic stations in South Carolina recorded a small signal, but its relationship with the fallen object is not yet confirmed.
According to experts, there is a possibility that part of the the wreckage of the Soviet stage flew to the ground.
«Given the robust design of the Soviet spacecraft, we can assume that some of the components did not burn in the atmosphere and reach the ground,” – says the site Spaceflight101.
Usually in such cases the ground can reach high-temperature parts of the engine or the fuel tank. The area of the fall can be from 500 to 1200 km, strongly influence the distribution of debris prevailing wind. Provided that block entry into the atmosphere began over Alabama and Georgia, detect debris can expect somewhere between North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
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