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Meteors & Meteoric Fireballs (Observed Aloft)

FIREBALL MYSTERY

USA: A fireball that blazed over the Rockies earlier this month was not a meteor or other celestial body, experts have said.

People from New Mexico to Montana saw the bright object break apart as it moved slowly northwards across the night sky. More than three dozen witnesses filed reports about the unusual sighting, described as three “rocks” with glowing red and orange streaks, which happened at 10.30pm local time on September 2.

But it was probably part of a Russian spy satellite that fell from orbit and burned up over Colorado and Wyoming, experts said. The object was most likely a piece of Russia’s Cosmos 2495 reconnaissance satellite, launched in May, said Charles Vick, an aerospace analyst with military information website Globalsecurity.org.
 
Heads up – it's explosive-meteorite season. A new analysis suggests that powerful incoming meteors like the rock responsible for last year's explosion over ChelyabinskMovie Camera, Russia, may not be completely random.

Brothers Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos at Complutense University of Madrid in Spain used data from the infrasound sensors of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization – which were designed to detect nuclear detonations on Earth – to measure 26 explosions from meteors hitting the atmosphere with energy of up to 1 kilotonne of TNT between 2000 and 2014. Seven other events were taken from published literature.

They found that several explosions occurred within a handful of days as similar explosions in previous years. For instance, the Chelyabinsk impact was on 15 February, 2013, while a meteorite over the South China Sea was recorded on 18 February, 2000, at almost the same latitude. The number of meteors in the study is admittedly very small, but a statistical analysis suggests that rather than being random events, there may be a seasonal aspect to explosive meteorites. ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... DvYCPldVsk
 
I recall NASA saying that there was a 'fireball season' in the early spring, several years back.

Could Earth be passing through a debris field?

I love the sight of shooting stars, though I can't claim to be an amatur astronomer, more of an enthusiastic observer.

Since my dog likes to have her last walk at about 11pm, I've had a chance to observe the night sky for the past 10 years, and I've seen a lot more meteors than I did when I walked my greyhounds at about the same time(I did get to see Hale-Bopp, though, and another, less spectacular comet before that. Another good reason to have dogs.).

That big ol' goonie that made such a mess in Russia was part of a comet debris field, perhaps there is another?

To quote from that song on 'Thunderbirds!" a shooting star will shoot you, and Mars will go to war, and the Man in the Moon will jump on you" or some such.

Hard times coming!
 
The presence of meteor streams, which appear at certain times of the year, is well known.
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all of them disintegrate and never hit the Earth's surface. Intense or unusual meteor showers are known as meteor outbursts and meteor storms, which may produce greater than 1,000 meteors an hour.[1] The Meteor Data Center lists about 600 suspected meteor showers of which about 100 are well established.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_shower
Some streams may contain larger than average meteoroids, but generally speaking these can't be anticipated.

Metors streams are mostly the result of decayed comets. Older streams are thinned out by repeated planetary encounters, but newer ones, which we can associate with a historical comet, tend to be denser near the originating comet's position - this position continues orbiting the sun. Although the earth will pass through the stream at the same time each year, it's only when the old comet's position happens to be near Earth that we get Meteor storms, with perhaps a few fireballs, and fragments reaching the ground.

However, some big bolides (fireballs) are not associated with meteor streams, but are part of near-earth or earth-crossing asteroid families. (The families are defined by orbital characteristics, but the objects in them don't usually all have a common origin in the way that meteor streams do.)

The Chelyabinsk object was thought to be an Apollo asteroid. They can be difficult to spot beforehand because they appear to 'come out of the sun'.
The radiant of the impacting asteroid was located in the constellation Pegasus in the Northern hemisphere.[110] The radiant was close to the Eastern horizon where the Sun was starting to rise.[110]

The asteroid belonged to the Apollo group of near-Earth asteroids,[110][119] and was roughly 40 days past perihelion[109] (closest approach to the Sun) and had aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun) in the asteroid belt.[109][110] Several groups independently derived similar orbits for the object, but with sufficient variance to point to different potential parent bodies of this meteoroid.[115][116][117][120] The Apollo asteroid 2011 EO40 is one of the candidates proposed for the role of the parent body of the Chelyabinsk superbolide.[116][117] Other published orbits are similar to the 2-kilometer-diameter asteroid (86039) 1999 NC43 to suggest they had once been part of the same object;[121] however, they may not be able to reproduce the timing of the impact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
Plenty more info on Wiki and the rest of the web (Nasa especially).
 
Actually, I knew most of that, but you have a way of condensing facts into very comprehensible article.

Your standard of journalism is commendable.

Still, it seems that there is a lot of meteor activity of late, perhaps we are crossing one of those debris streams.

I remember reading a very concise and cogent article on giant meteor impacts in 'Analog' magazine(or maybe 'Galaxy?) back in the sixties, scared me spitless!

I also note the sudden frequency of comets-I only remember one from my childhood, and that a wee fellow.

Hally's was a bust, but Hale-Bopp made up for it. And I got to see the actual rocky core of Hally, via a probe's camera. A flying peanut.

I wonder what the next few years will bring.?
(I want Pluto back! And one of the frozen planets in the Oort Cloud named Yuggoth, to honor Lovecraft!)
 
[Video]
'Fireball meteor' seen over western Japan

People in western Japan have reported sightings of a sparkling light racing across the sky on Monday evening.
Experts say it was probably a "fireball" meteor - a piece of an asteroid that ignites upon entering Earth's atmosphere - and any surviving fragments mostly likely ended up in the sea.

A remote controlled camera at Fukuoka airport recorded an object emitting a strong green light, while another camera at Hakata port showed a faint orange light.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29895502
 
It wasn't Mothra? Damn-blast it!

Been a lot of these things lately. Perhaps the lidless eyes of the surveillance cameras are catching sight of them, and the frequency is unchanged.

Or, we could be due for a big ol' honker,ker-smack and some bad damage.

Impacts by land, sea or air can be very bad-that Russian air-burst was pretty harsh, but a water strike will bring tsunami, and a land impact will be damned inconvenient.

If I were inclined to care a fig(I'm not), I'd say the risk was elevated.

Let come what comes.
 
The residents of Russia’s Amur region woke up Sunday morning to notice an unusual celestial phenomenon – a shining object flying through the sky, leaving a white trail that some social media users compared to the Nike logo.

“[The trace of the alleged meteorite] looked like a trace of the plane, only bigger and much brighter,” an eyewitness from the city of Belogorsk in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East told the local Amur.info website. The swoosh was seen near one of the military units in the city. ...

http://rt.com/news/223771-russia-meteorite-far-east/

 
Meteor in New Zealand
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11400450

Particularly nice is the radar image, which shows it clearly
B9jd_vxIQAMNNGk.png
 
Brilliant photo!
Meteor photographed from Loch Ness

A meteor that may have caused phone calls to the Coastguard in Scotland and England was photographed from the shores of Loch Ness.
Tourist guide John Alasdair Macdonald captured his image on a compact camera near Dochfour at about 21:00 on Sunday.

_81670712_meteor.jpg

Mr. MacDonald's photo, cropped and resized by rynner for this thread. Original on BBC page. (Note Orion, top right, and Sirius, centre.)​

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency got calls from people in the Highlands, Dumfries and Galloway and Cumbria concerned it was a distress flare.

Mr Macdonald described his images as a "fluke".
Mr Macdonald said: "I was taking some new pictures to put on my Facebook page using a Sony RX100 compact camera.
"It was a beautiful, clear night and I got some nice pictures but capturing the meteor was a fluke. I will never take a picture like that again."

Mr Macdonald, who runs the business The Hebridean Explorer, said he had seen messages on social media of a meteor being seen elsewhere, including Sleat on Skye.

A "meteorite" mistaken for a distress flare also sparked a lifeboat search operation off the English coast on Sunday.
Maryport Coastguard Rescue Team said it received numerous reports of a moving red object over the sea between Workington, Cumbria, and the Isle of Whithorn in Dumfries and Galloway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-31904273
 
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'Fireball' seen over Bangkok – dashcam video footage

Dashcam footage appears to show a fireball over the Thai capital Bangkok. Video from Porjai Jaturongkhakun, Mesapong Poojeenapun and Raweewat Tuntisavee shows the fireball’s speedy descent before it increases in size and burns out. Despite the apparent size of the fireball, which was visible 200km from the capital, meteorologists say the event is not a major incident.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/sep/07/fireball-bangkok-thailand-dashcam-video-footage
 
Not sure if it goes here, but I have been following the development of the WT1190F for a few days now, since it turned out it was on a collision course with Earth, due to happen on the 11th of November now re-dated to the 13th. More so that it was most likely not a natural object like meteor or comet, and most likely to be an Artificial object. So now it is figured to be a few decade old discarded stage of a rocket, possibly from the early Apollo missions. I wonder how much will survive reentry? And if it can be identified. So if your in the Southern Sri Lankan area, Heads Up ;) and let us know if you see anything.
 
An annual spectacular
The Sky at NightBBC Four

The Geminid meteor shower is a most awe-inspiring sight. Appearing in bursts of two or three, Geminids travel slower and burn brighter than most other meteors – creating long, glowing arcs of white, yellow, blue, red and green.

And this year we can expect a particularly dramatic display. The shower reaches its peak on 13 and 14 December, when there will be no Moon – allowing even the faintest shooting stars to stand out against the night sky.

But there's no need to wait till then. The meteors will appear every night for two weeks, from 4 till 17 December. You don’t need to be an expert astronomer to spot the Geminids, and you don't need any specialist equipment. Find out how to watch this year's show – one of the easiest ways to see something really spectacular in the night sky.

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zsr34j6
 
Video appears to show ‘fireball’ meteor shooting across Virginia sky
Dashcam footage captured the moment when a meteor lit up the Virginia night sky.
Ryan Ramgobin

Dashcam footage has emerged showing the moment a ‘fireball’ meteor lit up the night sky in Virginia.
Alexander Salvador, who captured the footage, says it took place at 6.16pm on Saturday evening.
“This looks like something burning up, falling down around the DC area. Snip from my dash cam.”

According to the American Meteor Society (AMS), “More than 330 witnesses have reported a large fireball over Pennsylvania”
“The fireball was seen from primarily New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but witnesses from Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Delaware, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and even Ontario also reported seeing the fireball.”

The term ‘fireball’ is used to describe a “very bright meteor”, which the AMS defines as “generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...or-shooting-across-virginia-sky-a6847306.html

It's a very brief appearance in the video, however.
 
I caught a relatively slow burner on Sunday night. Bits flying off it in all directions for a full three seconds or more. Caught it and put it in my pocket.
 
I caught a relatively slow burner on Sunday night. Bits flying off it in all directions for a full three seconds or more. Caught it and put it in my pocket.
...save it for a rainy day!
 
NASA has revealed that a massive meteor crashed into the Atlantic ocean earlier this month with the force equivalent to an atomic bomb. However nobody had a clue that it had happened.

Despite having the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb (around 13,000 tons of TNT), this particular fireball was actually pretty small, exploding over the South Atlantic ocean on February 6.

In comparison, the Chelyabinsk which struck in 2013 reportedly weighed around 10 tonnes and released roughly the energy equivalent to 500,000 tonnes of TNT. ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...orce-as-atomic-bomb_n_9296128.html?1456219981
 
Mysterious lights spotted across Scotland
By MARK MACKAY, 29 February 2016 8.17pm.



  • image.jpg
The skies across eastern and northern Scotland lit up in spectacular fashion this evening as a weather phenomenon brought light to the dark.



Those who witnessed the lights reported a range of sights and sights, from fireballs and meteors to simple bright flashes of light that filled the sky with white and even eerie green light.

It sparked an online frenzy, with members of the public reporting their sightings and others asking professional weather watchers to explain what had happened.

More to follow.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/scotland/mysterious-lights-spotted-across-scotland-1.926598
 
From the Beeb's website. Of course, I'm stuck indoors at the computer and missed it all :banghead:
'Bright flash' seen in skies over Scotland
Police in Aberdeen and Inverness say they have been receiving a large number of calls about a big, bright flash seen in the sky over northern Scotland.

People have taken to social media to report seeing a blue or white light, with some saying they also heard a rumbling sound.

There is speculation it could have been a meteor or a sonic boom from an aircraft.

Reports suggested the light may have been seen as far south as Edinburgh.

Did you see the light? Send your pictures and videos to [email protected] or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (international). Or you can upload here.

Read the terms and conditions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-35689551
 
I saw it, not long before 7pm. An impressive off-white flash. Was on the A9, near Pitlochry, headed for the Arctic Circle....
 
Those flashes over northern Scotland seem like Aurora Borealis - but surely the folks there would recognise that.
 
I saw it too (from Edinburgh) and it definitely wasn't Aurora which looks nothing like that. I didn't know what it was at the time but I DID think of meteor flashes. I wish I had a better view now, how ungrateful is that!? :oops:
 
Possible meteor filmed in Scotland. Could it not just be lightning? Video at link.

Police in Aberdeen and Inverness say they have been receiving a large number of calls about a big, bright flash seen in the sky over Scotland.

People have taken to social media to report seeing a blue, white or green light, with some saying they also heard a rumbling sound.

There is speculation it could have been a meteor or may have been a sonic boom.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-35689551
 
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