Abstract
A very large meteor fireball passed through the atmosphere above the east coast of New South Wales early in the morning of 7 April 1978. It was seen at 04.44 AEST (18.44 UT, 6 April) by hundreds of people from the cities of Sydney and Newcastle who deluged the news media with telephoned sightings. The resulting publicity led to the collection of many reports, of which 19 were useful in defining the trajectory and ground track of the fireball. I define here the ground track, which is shown in Fig. 1, and include the locations of the eye-witnesses.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hindley, K. B. & Miles, H. G. Nature 225, 255–257 (1970).
Olivier, C. P. Sky Telesc. 24, 19 (1962).
Andrews, A. D., Rackham, T. W. & Wayman, P. A. Nature 222, 727 (1969).
Romig, M. F. & Lamar, D. L. RAND Memo. RM-3724-ARPA (1963).
ReVelle, D. O. J. atmos. terr. Phys. 41, 453–473 (1979).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Keay, C. The 1978 New South Wales fireball. Nature 285, 464–466 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/285464a0
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/285464a0
- Springer Nature Limited