The fireball that streaked across the Mid-Columbia sky Tuesday continues to be a hot topic around the state as witnesses describe the bright flash they saw and others debate whether the meteor hit the ground.
University of Washington scientists said Wednesday that the meteor didn't crash into Earth. It likely disintegrated above the Blue Mountains about 25 miles north of LaGrande, Ore., at an altitude of about 19 miles.
Meanwhile, Tri-Citians continue to talk about the unique sky show that was seen around 5:30 a.m. in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia.
Video of the event on the Herald website generated more than 5,800 page views Tuesday and at least 3,400 page views Wednesday.
Roy Gephart, an earth scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and an avid amateur astronomer, said he's fielded more e-mails and conversations about it than any other sky topic in recent memory.
The UW scientists' determination was made using instruments in the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said Stephen Malone, a UW research professor emeritus of Earth and space sciences and former director of the seismic network.
"We only see what I interpret to be one event with a location that's about 30 kilometers in the air," Malone said. "We can't find anything with a seismic record to show that something hit the ground."
Malone said that doesn't necessarily mean nothing hit the ground, but it didn't hit hard enough to register on the seismometers. More than 20 seismometer stations picked up the sonic boom from the meteor when it was in the sky, he said.
"People in many cases heard a boom or very low rumble and that would shake the ground and our instruments," Malone said.
Malone worked with other researchers at the UW and PNNL to triangulate the location of where the meteor exploded using the readings from the seismometers.
The readings are likely to be slightly off because the station closest to the point where the meteor disintegrated hasn't been working since late January, he said.
Malone admits he's not a meteorite expert and said his findings are simply based on the fact that there was no seismic recording of any impact with the ground.
"My very crude and not very experienced guess would be that when it exploded, there might be pieces and bits that crumbled and fell to the Earth, but it might be more like dust falling -- maybe large dust particles," he said.
Even with the scientists' determination, Robert Ward, a meteorite hunter from Prescott, Ariz., said he's still convinced the meteor hit the ground. He's just waiting to see if he can get enough witness reports and videos to try to pinpoint a location.
"I can assure you there's material on there ground," Ward said. "There's little to no doubt, unless it was a very friable meteorite. ... It was a fairly big rock. It's somewhere on the ground."
Gephart said if anything did hit the ground, it's southeast of the Tri-Cities, maybe in the mountains of Idaho or Oregon. He also said the meteorite "would likely have to fall atop someone's roof, car, cow or in the middle of the road to be noticed."
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