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Meteors & Meteoric Fireballs (Observed Aloft)

The BBC "One Show" had a brief item on this just now, mentioning the 1974 Welsh lights/plane crash/meteor featuring an interview with Andy Roberts made last July
 
A bowling ball sized meteor exploded with enough force to cause a loud boom over a wide area yesterday.
Meteor explodes over Vermont with the force of 440 pounds of TNT

A meteor streaked through the night sky over Vermont on Sunday (March 7), creating a spectacular light show and causing Earth-shaking booms as it burned through the atmosphere.

The meteor's explosive passage through the atmosphere released the equivalent of 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of TNT, suggesting that the meteor was likely 10 pounds (4.5 kg) and 6 inches (15 centimeters) in diameter ...

The space rock smacked into the atmosphere at about 42,000 mph (68,000 kph) ... It appeared over the northern part of the state as a bright fireball at 5:38 p.m. EST, just before sunset. ...

Local news station WCAX3 reported calls from all over the state after the event, with Vermonters describing a "loud boom and body-rattling vibration" as the meteor passed overhead. ...

"I was fortunate to hear and see it by the Missisquoi River at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge in Swanton, VT, just before sunset," wrote Chris Hrotic, a commenter on NASA's initial post about the event. "No loud boom as reported by others, but a rushing sound that made me look up at just the right moment. It was extremely bright and absolutely spectacular!" ...

In comments on NASA's initial Facebook post about the incident, people claimed to have seen the rock from as far west as Saratoga, New York, as far north as Quebec, and as far east as Watertown, Massachusetts. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/vermont-meteor-explodes.html
 
Could have been spacecraft debris.

PORTLAND, Ore. — People in the Pacific Northwest were stunned, thrilled and maybe a little frightened Thursday night as they witnessed what appeared to be a large meteor breaking up in the sky.

Reports from people seeing the object came in from everywhere in the Northwest and at least as far north as Seattle. Many people reported seeing it around 9 p.m.

(Check out some of the many videos submitted by KATU viewers further down in this story)

What precisely the object, or objects, was has not been confirmed, but the National Weather Service in Seattle said it may have been debris from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that did not have a successful "deorbit burn."

https://katu.com/news/local/fireballmeteor-blazes-over-oregon-skies
 
... People in the Pacific Northwest were stunned, thrilled and maybe a little frightened Thursday night as they witnessed what appeared to be a large meteor breaking up in the sky. ...
What precisely the object, or objects, was has not been confirmed, but the National Weather Service in Seattle said it may have been debris from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that did not have a successful "deorbit burn."

Update ... Physical evidence confirmed it was SpaceX debris.
Piece of SpaceX rocket debris lands at Washington state farm

A piece of burning rocket debris seen streaking across the Pacific Northwest sky last week crashed on a farm in eastern Washington state, authorities said.

After the March 25 event, a farmer discovered a nearly intact piece of rocket in a private field, The Tri-City Herald reported.

The approximately 5-foot (1.5-meter) composite-overwrapped pressure vessel used for storing helium left a nearly 4-inch (10.16-centimeter) dent in the ground, Grant County sheriff’s spokesman Kyle Foreman said. No one was hurt, he said. ...

The farmer, who authorities said didn’t want to be identified, suspected the debris may have come from the rocket and left a message with the sheriff’s office over the weekend, Foreman said. Deputies responded Monday and contacted SpaceX officials. SpaceX confirmed it was part of the rocket and has since retrieved it ...

FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/science-spacex-washington-4cba3ceba4570b13c54491e26b4ee6b7
 
This fireball was witnessed and recorded by multiple people in Florida. Multiple videos are included at the link below, as well as a NOAA satellite photo illustrating how far off the coast it was flying.
Fireball meteor burns up over South Florida

A sparkling fireball zoomed across the sky near West Palm Beach, Florida on Monday night (April 13), and local news teams and home security systems caught footage of its dramatic descent. ...

The meteor was spotted at about 10 p.m. EDT, when it tumbled from the sky and disintegrated in a sudden flash of light, NPR reported.

Soon after, Jay O'Brien, a reporter for CBS News in West Palm Beach, tweeted a video of the fireball exploding in midair. His colleague Zach Covey, a meteorologist for CBS, responded saying that the fireball was likely a "chunk of an asteroid known as 2021 GW4," a space rock that was due to pass by Earth that night. ...

The asteroid, estimated to be about 14 feet (4 meters) across, passed the planet about 16,300 miles (26,200 kilometers) away, according to Space.com. The asteroid will now make a two-year loop around the sun, eventually swinging back around to Earth; however, NASA predicts that it won't come nearly as close as it did on April 12 for at least another century.

Although 2021 GW4 made a relatively close pass by the planet, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, disagreed with Covey's theory, tweeting that "It's a normal fireball and nothing to do with GW4." ...

FULL STORY (With Videos): https://www.livescience.com/fireball-florida-video.html
 

Large meteor wows Norway after blazing through night sky​

Norwegians have been left awestruck by what experts say was an unusually large meteor that illuminated the night sky in the country's south-east.
Footage shows powerful flashes of light over Norway, followed by what witnesses described as loud bangs on Sunday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57962384
 
Here's a photo of the 25 July fireball observed over Norway, along with the AP report on it. This one is really 'special' for demonstrating that a flaring meteor can light up the landscape like midday.

NO-Fireball-210725.jpg
Large meteor lights up skies in Norway

Norwegian experts say an unusually large meteor was visible over large parts of southern Scandinavia and illuminated southeast Norway with a powerful flash of light for a few seconds as many observers were reported to also hear a roaring sound afterwards.

The Norwegian Meteor Network said that it had analyzed and reviewed several videos of the event Sunday and said the meteor first appeared about 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of the capital, Oslo, and continued its trail in a southwest direction before fragmenting in several flashes of light.

“The meteor appeared at 1:08 a.m. on the night of July 25 and was visible for approximately for 5 seconds,” said the network said, which had posted a video on the phenomenon on its Twitter site. ...

Preliminary data suggested a meteorite may have hit Earth in a large forested area, Finnemarka, not far from Oslo, the Norwegian Meteor Network said.
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...ed-loggerhead-turtle-hatchling/9161627411082/
 
Another large fireball was seen over Texas on the night of 25 July.
Large fireball lights up night sky over Texas and nearby states

Residents of Texas and nearby states captured video of an overnight fireball that glowed bright as it streaked across the sky.

The American Meteor Society logged at least 213 reports of a fireball Sunday night, with sightings reported in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Missouri. ...

The fireball, believed to be a large meteor, was caught on video by dashboard cameras and doorbell cameras in Texas. Some witnesses reported hearing a loud booming sound that accompanied the spectacle. ...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...as-Louisiana-Oklahoma-Missouri/1621627324721/
 

Mystery ‘jellyfish-shaped object’ filmed ‘entering Earth’s atmosphere’ by stunned Russians.


Residents in the Amur Oblast region spotted the glowing object flying overhead last month, and released a video of it online:


In the video’s caption, the user explains: “My friends and I saw the movement of some object in the sky, it looked like a comet, but it flew slowly and we realized that it was some kind of rocket or flying machine.

“A little later it exploded and a pattern in the form of jellyfish was formed, we even heard some kind of sound similar on blast.”

https://www.the-sun.com/news/3544462/mystery-jellyfish-shaped-object-russia/

maximus otter
 
The witnesses had it backwards ... The object wasn't coming down, but rather going upward. It was a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat upper stage and 36 OneWeb internet communication satellites, launched from Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East region.

Here's the Reuters news story about the launch ...
OneWeb launches satellites to roll out northern internet service

Britain-based tech company OneWeb sent 36 satellites into orbit on Thursday, a landmark launch it said would pave the way for it to begin rolling out a commercial internet service in swathes of the northern hemisphere this year.

OneWeb, which has more than 200 satellites in orbit as part of push to provide a global internet service, said the launch from Russia's Far East would allow it to offer connectivity everywhere north of 50 degrees latitude.

It listed the United Kingdom, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, continental U.S., the Arctic Seas and Canada as areas that should be offered full connectivity.

A commercial service should be rolled out by the end of 2021 with a global service following next year, it said. Service demonstrations will begin in several key locations this summer, including in Alaska and Canada, it said.

The satellites were blasted into orbit by a Soyuz rocket from Russia's Vostochny cosmodrome. The rocket bore the message "Hello North Pole" on it, OneWeb said.

The remote energy-rich Arctic region, which has poor communications infrastructure, has taken on greater significance for world powers as ice has melted due to climate change. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.reuters.com/technology/...oll-out-northern-internet-service-2021-07-01/

Here are stock photos of the 1 July launch, illustrating the same trail / features seen in the video ...
Amur Region, Russia. 1st July, 2021. A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat upper stage and 36 OneWeb internet communication satellites blasts off from Vostochny Cosmodrome. Credit: Roscosmos Press Office/TASS/Alamy Live
SOURCE (With More Photos): https://www.alamy.com/amur-region-r...officetassalamy-live-news-image433980820.html

The lingering bright spot in the bulbous 'flare' toward the end of the video is the 2nd stage rocket exhaust climbing away after 1st stage separation.
 

Massive fireball soaring over North Carolina at 32,000 mph caught on video


The American Meteor Society shared video taken Friday from the porch of a home in Rowland Pond, North Carolina, showing a massive fireball fall from the sky.


NASA says the fireball fell over the North Carolina coast at around 7:40 p.m. and was one of at least five fireballs seen over the U.S. in the same night.

An analysis of these accounts shows the meteor was visible 48 miles above the ocean off Camp Lejeune and soared northeast at about 32,000 miles per hour. It traveled 26 miles through Earth's upper atmosphere then disintegrated 28 miles above Morehead City on the coast.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-carolina-fireball-video/

maximus otter
 
A moderately bright fireball was recorded by multiple folks over Hungary on 13 January.
Large, green fireball lights the night sky over Hungary

A large green fireball illuminated the night sky over Hungary and was captured on video from various locations around the country.

Witnesses reported spotting the fireball, a particularly bright meteor, streaking across the sky shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday. ...

The light in the night sky was spotted all across Hungary, and was caught on camera by multiple witnesses.

It was unclear whether the entire meteor burned up in the atmosphere or whether any pieces made impact with the ground.
SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/0...-lights-night-sky-over-Hungary/6031642197209/

VIDEOS:
 
Midlands meteor. vid at link .

A fireball streaking across the sky has been caught on a dashcam in the East Midlands.

James Allum-Rooney was driving between junction 24 and 25 on the M1 towards his home in Chilwell, Nottinghamshire, on Saturday when he saw the meteor.

"I saw it out of the corner of my eye, much brighter than it looks on the clip, so my first thought was that it was an aircraft on fire," he said.

"As I was close to East Midlands Airport, I thought something might have happened on take-off."

Reports suggest the meteor was seen in a number of locations around the country at the same time on Saturday evening.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-nottinghamshire-60200874
 
That’s a nice little sparkler
 
Quite a few news reports from across the country, I saw it from Sleaford, bright green (looked like a firework but wasn't travelling in a firework-like direction or height), about ten to seven, flying south to north.
Scotland: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-stunned-meteor-hurtling-earth-26086288
Wales: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/flaming-meteor-skies-north-wales-22926856
Lancashire and Cumbria: https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/flaming-meteor-spotted-burning-through-22926892
Yorkshire: https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/dramatic-moment-meteor-fireball-blazed-22924889

On a side note, it's interesting that almost all local news now seems to be controlled by Reach Group Newspapers!
 
A bolide sighted over Colorado, Utah and New Mexico on February 18 had an unusually long observable path and a relatively slow speed (estimated at circa 60,000 mph).


Meteor spotted in Colorado sky was unusually slow

Astronomers said a fireball that streaked across the Colorado sky had an unusually long path and was moving surprisingly slowly for a meteor.

John Keller, director of the Fiske Planetarium, said the fireball that sparked dozens of reports to the American Meteor Society on Friday night was a bolide, a particularly large meteorite. ...

Chris Peterson, an astronomer with the Cloudbait Observatory, said his instruments tracked the meteor's path from Steamboat, Colo., to the New Mexico border. He told CBS Denver that it's "unusual" for a meteor's "path to be that long."

Peterson said the meteor might have bounced off the atmosphere and headed back into space, or it may have burned up completely. He said the meteor was estimated to be traveling about 60,000 miles per hour, which he said is unusually slow for a fireball. ...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/0...nusually-slow-meteor-long-path/2561645473908/
 
Think I saw a pale yellow meteor heading south over central Lincolnshire about five minutes ago (23.10), followed a couple of minutes later by a faint low rumbling sound. Only seen for a second or so, looked slightly oval, no tail.
Will wait to see if there are other reports.
 
Loud boom and streaking fireball stirs panic in three US states.

The bolide, which disintegrated in Louisiana, was also reportedly spotted in Arkansas and Mississippi.

A loud boom prefaced a streaking fireball spotted in three Southern states, scientists confirmed Thursday.

More than 30 people in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi reported seeing the exceptionally bright meteor in the sky around 8am Wednesday after hearing loud booms in Claiborne county, Mississippi, and surrounding areas, Nasa reported. It was first spotted 54 miles (87 km) above the Mississippi River, near Alcorn, Mississippi, officials said.

“This is one of the nicer events I have seen in the GLM (Geostationary Lightning Mappers) data,” said Bill Cooke, lead of Nasa’s Meteoroid Environments Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
(C) The Guardian. '22
 
That fireball woke me up! I live on the Devon end of the Blackdown Hills and I was woken up by a terrific rumbling / roaring sound which I thought was one of those large military planes flying very low up the valley (which we get from time to time, but never at night). Just after that there was a bright (moving) glow of light that shone in through the velux window (in our converted attic) for a couple of seconds. I was initially cross that the military had flown over us at that time of night, but then when I saw the light I began to wonder what the hell it was!
 
That makes sense - there were a few reports of a sonic boom with that one, and its trajectory took it across the SW peninsula (source: ukmeteornetwork.co.uk):
20220511_233959_ground_track.png
 
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That's very interesting. It looks to me from that map that it went more or less right over us!
I'd like to have seen it.
 
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