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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

> Earlier on Saturday, the capsule was picked up by cameras as a dazzling fireball streaking over Australia's Coober Pedy region.

Pretty much why the region was selected. it's a big empty largely uninhabited area already populated with field of view overlapping fireball tracking cameras.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fireball_Network

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAAF_Woomera_Range_Complex

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But did they find it in a small town where everyone was dead, and it turned out that the local doctor had pried open the capsule? :-)

Huffing Sterno and crying like a baby will save us!

Awesome ref - and an almost exact fit. Loved that book and movie as a kid. Michael Crichton had an interesting mind.

And incredible attention to detail. I believe the whole book was written just for the description of sterilisation protocol )

“That machine, you’d better not let the AMA find out about it.”

“We haven’t.”

Coober Pedy ("White man's holes") is a fascinating place though, among other things it's where they filmed Mad Max 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy

I think you mean Mad Max 3 (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome).

I wonder if there are any pictures available of the dazzling fireball? Seems odd not to include at least one.

JAXA has several good videos:

http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/topics/20201206_fireball/

Some great fireball captures in this 3m video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNK6EW_v4Ag

The landing-spot pentangulation was done with 5 dual-yagi stations along the perimeter of the landing zone.

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