It came from outer space, exploding high above the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina.
That April 1 event — an incoming meteor, also termed a bolide — was observed by both U.S. space-based military and civil sensors.
Hush-hush U.S. government satellite sensors detected the speedy fireball cutting through our atmosphere. The object's brightness peaked at an altitude of nearly 60 miles (90.5 kilometers) over the South Atlantic.
That dazzling spectacle was also caught by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's GOES-E and Europe's Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) Imager-1 satellite. Those two independent spacecraft in geostationary orbit detected the bolide via onboard lightning imagers.
This skyfall show is among a number of recent episodes that spotlight the value of combining multi-sensor data to not only portray fireball dynamics but also to help appreciate human-cause...
English (US)