decayer(s) in Finland
Vuorela Arto (arto.vuorela@nls.fi)
3 Sep 97 10:41:37 +0200
Dear SeeSat-L member,
In Helsingin Sanomat newspaper on 31st August 1997, page A 12,
there is a story that space junk is suspected as the reason
for light phenomena.
The coast guard received several reports of light phenomenas which
were somewhat similar than red emergency rockets. So, a helicopter and
several vessels participated in searches.
About 20 reports came from different parts of Archipelago
(B 4 E in http://www.fmi.fi/SAA/EDU/meriennustusalueet.html,
centered at 21 50' E, 60 10' N, about 100 by 80 km area)
about 22.35 local time, which is
3 h ahead of UTC during summer time (otherwise would be 2).
Also in the Gulf of Finland there were 3 observations at 22.30,
on the sea outside Sipoo (25 25' E, 60 15') and
Kotka (27 00' E, 60 25'). One observation came also "before
midnight" from about Sipoo.
Nothing was found. The coast guards suspect that space junk had
glown in the atmosphere. Can anybody confirm, which might that
(those?) have been? I can send the results for the coast guards.
More details from them:
A few place names, where the phenomena was reported from:
Aura, Nauvo, V{noksa, S{rkisalo, Kasn{s.
Colour was "greenish", direction "at west",
the motion direction of the light was "downwards".
Not so interesting observation because of the colour.
Report written down at 22.38.
(I think that if there would have been a system for
analysing the possible decayers, there would not necessarily
have been a reason to send the vessels etc.)
Best regards,
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Arto Vuorela * tel. +358 205 41 5582
National Land Survey / Satellite Image Centre* fax +358 205 41 5505
PL 84, FIN-00521 Helsinki * arto.vuorela@nls.fi
Finland * http://www.nls.fi/sat/
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