ALASKAN SKY FLASH INVESTIGATED

The third meteorite sighting in one week. What was once a rare, once-in-a-lifetime event, is now becoming so commonplace it almost seems as if the sky is falling all around us. Like a strong summer shower that begins with the occasional raindrop felt here and there, these rocks falling from the sky could well be signalling the beginning of a deluge of space debris headed our way.

Apr 24.05

As 37-year-old John Kempen traveled the Parks Highway to Nenana at about 2 a.m. Saturday, he watched the sky, hoping to point out the northern lights to his girlfriend.

But instead of spotting a blur of emerald green, Kempen saw a bright flash of bluish white with sparks for a tail and fiery "chunks breaking off."

The comet-like object, maybe the size of a basketball, slid across the sky from the southwest to the northeast.

Kempen figured the object was a meteor.

According to Neal Brown, director of the space grant program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, Kempen probably saw a piece of space junk.

An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 pieces of useless debris orbit the Earth, Brown said, and more is continually added. Among the objects are rocket motors, and bolts and flanges, which are adapters between rocket motors. Also orbiting the earth are old satellites and out-of-commission spacecraft.

"From about 100 to 5,000 miles away from the Earth, it's a virtual junkyard," Brown said. "I think there's an astronaut's glove still out there."

Gravity pulls the junk back to Earth.

"It's coming in all the time," Brown said.

The main reason Kempen's sighting sounds more like junk than a meteor is that it exhibited color, Brown said.

"Meteors don't have any blue or green or any colors," he said. "Most of the meteors are just rocks."

Secondly, the sighting was in the wrong part of the sky to be a Lyrid meteor, which would likely travel from northeast to southwest.

"It's the exact opposite of what they described," Brown said. "It still could have been a meteor, but I really don't think so."