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Robert Walker

To add to the other answers, here is a painting of the 1860 fireball which slowly grazed the atmosphere.

And article about it in New Scientist Forensic astronomer solves Walt Whitman mystery and Forensic astronomer solves Walt Whitman mystery

Then another 1913 Great Meteor Procession which was a spectacular procession of several fireballs one after the other.

Gustav Hahn - 1913 Great Meteor Procession

Wikipedia has several articles in the topic area and a list of known Earth grazing fireballs here: Earth-grazing fireball

About the 1972 fireball: 1972 Great Daylight Fireball

And a later one, over Czechoslovakia and Poland Earth-grazing meteoroid of 13 October 1990, and several others have been recorded.

Some of them were recorded exiting the atmosphere like that one. With the 1860 one I think it is a case of it continuing through the atmosphere out of sight rather than proved to leave the atmosphere again. and same for the 1913 one - and if it was a slowly decaying natural satellite of the Earth you'd expect it to eventually just break up completely and maybe some pieces survive to the ground. What I read just now searching for information about it didn't seem make it clear on that point whether they grazed and eventually fell to Earth or went off into space again. Anyone know?

But the modern ones in 1972, 1990 etc are examples that were actually observed to leave the atmosphere again so those are definite cases of Earth atmosphere grazing and going off into space again.

This one is from December 24, 2014,

SPMN241214 - a slow moving Earth grazing fireball from December 2014.

Ground track of asteroid SPMN241214 - entered the atmosphere over North Africa and then exited it over the Atlantic west of Spain Preliminary Spectroscopic and Dynamical Analysis of an Earth-Grazer Fireball Observed on December 24, 2014

More examples here: Earth-grazing fireball

About the Author

Robert Walker

Robert Walker

Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.
Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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