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Meteors & Meteoric Fireballs (Observed Aloft)

Technically I'm on them right now, as this uplift runs for up about 1000km. However, according to the designatii, the Flinders Range proper commences about 300km north of here. I'll be going into the northern reaches tomorrow. Halfway between Parachilna and Blinman right inside the Parachilna Gorge, not that that'll mean a blind thing to anyone apart from perhaps @Mungoman.

This is my poz - wide open sky. Devoid of humanity at night.
764a2961c392766844d4fe7ccc72d5f9.jpg

It is a most special place I try to get to a couple of times a year. Going solo this time. Bit of zen needed.
Heysen-Range1.jpg



Sure will.
That country I reckon is guaranteed to take your soul Skinny - I can't explain it any other way, so that when you go back, it's like visiting an old familiar friend.

It tells me, 'put the billy on, make a cuppa, and I'll tell you a tale...See that red kangaroo there by himself? and see those greys over there? right? Well, one time those fellas had no tales.

It all started over a wild bees nest in a crack in that rock over there...
 
Technically I'm on them right now, as this uplift runs for up about 1000km. However, according to the designatii, the Flinders Range proper commences about 300km north of here. I'll be going into the northern reaches tomorrow. Halfway between Parachilna and Blinman right inside the Parachilna Gorge, not that that'll mean a blind thing to anyone apart from perhaps @Mungoman.

This is my poz - wide open sky. Devoid of humanity at night.
764a2961c392766844d4fe7ccc72d5f9.jpg

It is a most special place I try to get to a couple of times a year. Going solo this time. Bit of zen needed.
Heysen-Range1.jpg



Sure will.
Beautiful country mate - how were the flies? bit chilly of a night?
 
Haven't been yet, Mungo. Just leaving in an hour or so. The flies will be horrendous for sure, so I'm aiming to drive until midnight, pitch camp, stargaze until sparrow's fart and then sleep under the dome swag flyscreen until sundown, get up and go again. Got a trailer load of fire fuel. Will let you know how the skies were when I get back.
 
Haven't been yet, Mungo. Just leaving in an hour or so. The flies will be horrendous for sure, so I'm aiming to drive until midnight, pitch camp, stargaze until sparrow's fart and then sleep under the dome swag flyscreen until sundown, get up and go again. Got a trailer load of fire fuel. Will let you know how the skies were when I get back.

Travel well mate.
 
A Bering big one.

A huge fireball exploded in the Earth's atmosphere in December, according to Nasa.

The blast was the second largest of its kind in 30 years, and the biggest since the fireball over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago. But it went largely unnoticed until now because it blew up over the Bering Sea, off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. The space rock exploded with 10 times the energy released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Lindley Johnson, planetary defence officer at Nasa, told BBC News a fireball this big is only expected about two or three times every 100 years.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47607696
 
Local splashdown of stellar poo poo. I missed this one, but I saw a similar fall a few years ago at midnight which lit the hills up like the day. Awesome spectacle.

"This object almost certainly, tens of millions of years ago, started out in the main asteroid belt out beyond Mars, between Mars and Jupiter," he said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...to-earth-was-the-size-of-a-small-car/11141760
Various videos at the link.

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Queensland gets a loud one:
Video and story at link. "I thought it was a little earthquake or something. I heard three booms in quick succession and the house shook. Set all the dogs off in the street."

I saw and heard one of these a couple of years ago. Watched it break up into three slow burners with the pop pop pop after. It was right on sunset traveling east. Colours of green and orange in the trail. Superlucky me.


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06...-and-felt-across-southern-queensland/11238890
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Looks like it was a big one.

A land and air search was launched in Devon after a suspected meteor was feared to be an aircraft breaking up in the sky.

Numerous callers alerted police to the flying object during the early hours of Sunday. It was later seen breaking apart and falling towards the ground.

Two police helicopters and a coastguard helicopter from Newquay were scrambled amid fears a plane could be in trouble.

Police said it had since received multiple reports of meteor sightings.

UK Meteor Network - a network of astronomers with meteor detection cameras - said by 09:00 it had received 68 reports of a fireball meteor at about 05:45 BST.

Devon and Cornwall Police said it began receiving calls at 06:25 BST from worried residents in Yelverton, Princetown and Clearbrook.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-49626084
 
Retrospective analysis of this 2016 fireball seen over Australia suggests it may have been a "minimoon" (a small asteroid or other space rock captured into an earth orbit before finally entering our atmosphere)
Fireball Spotted Over Australian Desert May Have Been Super-Rare 'Minimoon'

Fireballs explode in Earth's atmosphere all the time, usually unremarkably. And a fireball that exploded over the Australian desert in 2016 might have been mistaken for any other bolide, if not for a network of cameras monitoring the sky to search for just such events.

It was thanks to images taken by these cameras - called the Desert Fireball Network - that astronomers were able to ascertain the fireball was no ordinary exploding space rock.

Instead, velocity data revealed the rock had probably been in orbit around Earth before meeting its fiery end; a phenomenon known as a temporarily captured orbiter, or, colloquially, a minimoon. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-fire...t-could-have-been-a-rare-and-elusive-minimoon
 
Fantastic meteor spotted by me on Friday 6 Dec 2019, 1730GMT south of Dunkeld, Scotland UK- I meant to mention it earlier

Track was from east to west, and fast. Quite a thick flarepath, with the impression of trailed seperated 'chunks', and relatively low in the zenith. Totally-different from any feeble shooting-stars, and probably just the third or fourth I've ever seen.

Plenty others apparently saw it too....really impressive https://fireball.imo.net/members/imo_view/event/2019/6275
 
Fireball identified.

At around 1 a.m. local standard time on April 29, 2017, a fireball flew over Kyoto, Japan. Compared to other fireballs spotted from Earth, it was relatively bright and slow. Now, scientists have determined not only what the fireball was, but also where it came from.

"We uncovered the fireball's true identity," says Toshihiro Kasuga, paper author and visiting scientist at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and Kyoto Sangyo University. "It has a similar orbit to that of the near-Earth asteroid 2003 YT1, which is likely its parent body."
2003 YT1, a binary asteroid first detected in 2003, appears to have been active in the past, meaning it fissured and released dust particles, such as the one responsible for the 2017 fireball. It does not currently show any activity, though, according to Kasuga. However, the researchers found that the orbit, estimated radiant point, velocity and appearance date of the 2017 fireball are all consistent with dust particles that originated from 2003 YT1.

"The potential break-up of the rock could be dangerous to life on Earth," Kasuga says. "The parent body 2003 YT1 could break up, and those resulting asteroids could hit the Earth in the next 10 million years or so, especially because 2003 YT1 has a dust production mechanism."
The researchers found that this dust production mechanism, or the asteroid's likelihood of releasing dust and rock particles, stems from its rotational instability in a process called the YORP effect. When the asteroid is warmed by the Sun, the energy results in a small thrust, which can produce a corresponding recoil, depending on the gravitational pull and other physical variables. The recoil can twist the asteroid, introducing a rotational change. The change can be at physical odds with the gravity and/or other forces, and force the asteroid to physically break—even just a little, a process which produces dust.

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-asteroid-unveils-fireball-identity.html
 
This fireball observed over California may well have been vintage space debris, and its fiery flight was captured on video.
Suspected space debris breaks into pieces over Southern California

Southern California residents captured video when suspected space debris lit up the night sky and broke into multiple pieces.

Videos captured by residents in San Diego, Los Angeles and the surrounding areas Wednesday evening show the bright fireball, suspected by some to be a meteor, breaking into several smaller pieces while streaking across the sky.

It was unclear whether any of the pieces fell to earth or if they burned up in the atmosphere.

The American Meteor Society logged 63 reports of sightings in Southern California on Wednesday night. The society said the object may have been debris from the Delta II rocket that launched a GPS satellite in 1989.

SOURCE (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/0...uthern-California/7991580404772/?spt=slh&or=1
 
Here's a bright fireball over England, captured on video a couple of nights ago ...
Large fireball lights up night sky over England

Astronomers said an unusually bright fireball that streaked across the night sky in England was a meteor.

The ball of light was caught on video by Derby, England, resident Gary Rodgers' doorbell camera about 11:35 p.m. Monday.

"I thought it was a firework at first, but I listened to the sound and you couldn't hear any noise," he told the Derby Telegraph.

The Royal Astronomical Society said the object appeared to be an unusually bright meteor. A spokesman said it was a "fairly rare and spectacular sight."
SOURCE (With Video): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/0...up-night-sky-over-England/2521580940243/?sl=4
 
This presumed meteor / fireball that broke up over Washington state was most widely detected for the audible boom it generated.
Boom heard in Washington state likely an exploding meteor

A loud booming sound reported by multiple witnesses in Washington state was likely a meteor exploding over the area, experts said.

The American Meteor Society said several reports came in about a bright object streaking across the sky over the Puget Sound area about 7 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a loud boom that some witnesses said caused their homes to shake.

"The more I read the more inclined I am to believe this was a fireball (which is a meteor that is larger and brighter than normal)," Bob Lunsford with the American Meteor Society told KOMO-TV. "I'm certain now that this was a meteoric event."

Lunsford said the timing of the sightings and the boom, which occurred about three minutes after the streak of light was noted, makes sense for a larger-than-normal meteor explosion.

"If this was larger than normal then the sound could have originated from a higher altitude. So a delay of 3 minutes is entirely possible," Lunsford said.

Space.com said the annual Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower, which is caused by Earth's orbit crossing through debris from Halley's Comet, peaked early Wednesday morning, but will continue to cause sightings for a few weeks.

SOURCE: (With Video of Object): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/0...ate-likely-an-exploding-meteor/1161588956308/
 
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Here's a rare one ... A spectacularly exploding bolide over Turkey, recorded by multiple witnesses. It's a good example of how dramatic a single meteor / bolide incident can be. The diverse video recordings also illustrate how the effect can be variably dramatic depending on the observer's vantage point.
A Possible Meteor Was Just Seen Exploding in The Sky in Turkey

On the evening of Wednesday 27 May, residents of northern Turkey were treated to a spectacular light show. Videos on social media show what appears to be a meteor streaking across the sky, before exploding in the air with a thunderous boom.

Turkish news website Daily Sabah reports that a "ball of light" was visible in several provinces at around 8:30 pm local time, including Artvin, Erzurum, Sivas, Tuncel and Ardahan. Social media videos also show the fireball as seen from Erzincan and Trabzon.

It's an amazing sight, filmed from multiple angles, clearly showing that the object exploded at a significant altitude. It's not yet confirmed that the object was a meteor, but news outlet Hürriyet reports that meteorologists have assessed it as what we'd expect from a "meteor shower". ...

We're still waiting on confirmation on whether the fireball that lit up the Turkish sky on Wednesday night was indeed a meteor, but it certainly fits the profile.

FULL STORY (With Multiple Videos):
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-possible-meteor-has-been-seen-exploding-in-the-sky-in-turkey
 
Mysterious blue fireball streaks above Western Australia, puzzling astronomers

A streak of blue light that flashed across the sky on Monday surprised western Australia's night owls and befuddled the astronomy community.

The blue fireball was seen at 1 a.m. local time on June 15, according to ABC News Pilbara. "It was really a spectacular observation," Glen Nagle, the education and outreach manager at the CSIRO-NASA tracking station in Canberra, told the news agency. Sightings were reported across the remote Pilbara region as well as in the country's Northern Territory and in South Australia, Nagle said.

Many observers caught the phenomenon on video. The fireball streaks steadily across the sky. At first, it appears orange or yellow, with a short tail streaming behind it. After a few seconds, the bulk of the fireball lights up blue. ...

Scientists aren't quite sure what object was burning up in the atmosphere to create the brilliant light show, according to ABC News. Some amateur astronomers speculated that the object could be human-made debris, perhaps from a recent rocket launch. But that seems unlikely, Renae Sayers, a research ambassador at Curtin University's Space Science and Technology Centre, told the news agency. ...

FULL STORY (With Photo / Link To Video):
https://www.livescience.com/mysterious-fireball-pilbara.html
 
meteor blazes across US skies

A bright meteor streaked across skies over US Midwestern states early on Monday morning.

Hundreds of witnesses reported seeing the glowing object, which was visible in seven US states and Ontario, Canada, according to the American Meteor Society.

The fireball was also reportedly accompanied by a sonic boom that rattled homes in the area.

with video
 
An Australian research vessel's livestream camera captured the descent of a dramatic fireball near Tasmania.
Watch a bright fireball explode over the Tasman Sea (video)

A bright green meteor streaked across the southern coast of Tasmania, Australia, and researchers caught the fireball on camera as it broke up over the ocean.

The meteor lit up the night sky on Wednesday (Nov. 18) at 9:21 p.m. local Tasmanian time (5:21 a.m. EST and 1021 GMT). A livestream camera on the research vessel Investigator, which is operated by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, captured incredible views of the fireball as it descended from space and disintegrated above the Tasman Sea.

"What we saw on reviewing the livestream footage astounded us; the size and brightness of the meteor was incredible," John Hooper, CSIRO voyage manager on board Investigator, said in a statement. "The meteor crosses the sky directly in front of the ship and then breaks up — it was amazing to watch the footage, and we were very fortunate that we captured it all on the ship livestream.” ...

FULL STORY (With Video):
https://www.livescience.com/bright-meteor-video-tasman-sea-november-2020.html
 
This daytime fireball and associated boom was observed by many folks in Ontario and the eastern USA.
Midday fireball, boom thrill gazers from Ontario to Virginia

A noontime boom that was heard and felt from southern Ontario to Virginia was likely caused by a disintegrating meteor, according to an organization in western New York that keeps track of such phenomena.

Witnesses across the area reported hearing the boom or seeing a fireball in the sky shortly after noon on Wednesday, said Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society in Geneseo. By 5 p.m., the organization had recorded 90 reports of the fireball seen in Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ontario, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Police agencies and fire departments around central New York received 911 calls reporting a boom that shook windows, but clouds prevented sightings in much of the area. Since most reports of the boom were around Syracuse, that’s likely where the meteor blew to bits, Lunsford said. ...

FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/midday-fireball-thrill-gazers-ontario-c6f28d221775be82990bb2c2510d0011
 
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