A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii

[Guest guest]

A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050208.html

Credit: Night Sky Live Collaboration

Explanation: What in heavens-above was that? Not everything seen on

the night sky is understood. The Night Sky Live (NSL) project keeps

its global array of continuously updating web cameras (CONCAMs)

always watching the night sky. On the night of 2004 December 17, the

fisheye CONCAM perched on top of an active volcano in Haleakala,

Hawaii, saw something moving across the night sky that remains

mysterious. The NSL team might have disregarded the above streak as

unconfirmed, but the Mauna Kea CONCAM on the next Hawaiian island

recorded the same thing. The NSL team might then have disregarded the

streak as a satellite, but no record of it was found in the heavens-

above.com site that usually documents bright satellite events. If you

think you have a reasonable explanation for the streak, please

contribute to the on-line discussion. Current candidates include a

known satellite that was somehow missed by heavens-above, a recently

launched rocket, and a passing space rock. Volunteers are solicited

by the NSL project to help monitor the operability of each NSL

CONCAM, including looking for interesting anomalies such as this.

Disclosure: Robert Nemiroff collaborates on both the NSL and APOD

projects.