A tad chilly

Hey, if the timing of descent is right, it looks like goldendog and Grobe may have a real shot at seeing this thing!

12:19-- it just crossed the coast at about Seattle/Victoria.  Path across Canada continues to the NW all the way, across the southern tip of Hudson Bay and exiting up in no man's land on the east coast.

I missed my window. Now all I have to look forward to is Nibiru landing in my backyard.

12:30-- Over the Atlantic now, headed for northwest Africa.  Just as well for me, as there's a steady rain here and I doubt I could have seen anything anyway.  I was just within the very southern portion of the potential viewing radius.

Darn, I missed it, too. And the weather is clear for once, too.

12:40-- If it's still flying, it just crossed over the NW coast of Africa.  These simulations will continue to show its "progress" even after it plunges, so it's possible there will be a delay after it falls before we hear of confirmation.  It could be down already.

12:58-- NASA says they are confirming re-entry location and time and will issue an update shortly.

At 1:12 a.m. MSNBC mentioned unconfirmed reports of fireballs seen over northern Canada during the previous hour.

1:37 a.m.-- the orbital tracks are still updating, though very likely now not relevant.  But if UARS is still hanging on somehow, it's back even with Hawaii, this time on the west side, and headed again for Canada.  Everything shifted 20 degrees or so to the west on this orbital track, which means its track across Canada would be farther north.

Good lord, I just read an article that said early Friday Italy's civil protection agency warned residents of northern Italy to stay indoors on lower floors near load bearing walls, because of the risk from UARS's impending plunge.  You can see why that's the country where 7 seismologists are currently being prosecuted for manslaugher because they didn't predict an earthquake.

I just finished reading an article about what would happen if space junk hit your house/car:

http://www.slate.com/id/2304426/

Anyone whose car or house got hit would probably rake in a lot more from interviews and talk show appearances than they lost in belongings.  

Here in Southern California it's 63F @ 5:50am. Suppose to warm up to 79F. Cheers! >:[

Cheers, Max.  At 2:40 p.m. it's 64 F here, so my afternoon temperature has finally surpassed your overnight low. 

NASA's audio press conference for UARS just ended.  A long time coming, and still no definitive answer (which was not at all understood by the so-called science journalists participating), but NASA's conclusion is that the most likely end was that UARS went down in the Pacific shortly before it would have crossed the North American coast, and that would have been on the orbit during which several of us were hoping for a look.  If they're right, UARS never got as far as any of us in North America.  When debris goes down in the ocean it's often never known exactly when or where.  The timing determination comes from no longer picking up the object at expected points, as well as the fact that there have been no credible reports of sightings despite the fact that the re-entry was highly publicized and thousands of people in the potential areas were scanning the skies looking specifically for the re-entry.

The video on YouTube shot from Okotoks, Alberta, has been branded a fake by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.  Other reported "debris" sightings in Alberta were not located along the orbital track and have thus far been dismissed.

*****

RIP UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite)

Launch date: September 12, 1991, aboard the space shuttle Discovery
Release date (from the shuttle): September 15, 1991
Designed lifespan: 3 years
Actual operational lifespan: 14 years 91 days
Time in space: 7317 days 22 hours

UARS had a designed 3-year life, but 14 years after deployment 6 of its 10 instruments were still operating when the Bush administration axed the mission's funding in 2005.  UARS was studying the upper atmosphere and ozone depletion, and the Bush administration was skittish about research in those areas because the data obtained were often in conflict with the administration's environmental stances.  UARS was decommissioned while still operational in 2005 after 14 years 91 days of service.

Interesting. Thanks for the update.

Here's a decent cyclonic structure from a few minutes ago.  

I just changed that to the animated version from a single static frame I posted in error.

For the record, this was not me.

I was outside with my eyes peeled for a good half and hour in and around the time it was projected to be overhead (it was a beautiful night), but outside of a few airplanes I didn't see anything.