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Fire in the Sky
Webster - A strange fireball spotted flying slowly over the Houston area raised a lot of questions after images and videos started popping up on social media. They were posted by a Webster man named Jordan Sterling. Sterling is used to the view from his balcony but he rarely see's anything but signs and wires. "I'm always looking in the sky to try to catch something out of the ordinary," Sterling explained. Early Sunday evening that changed. "I look up in the sky and just right there in the sky," Sterling says pointing to the horizon, "is a huge fireball with a giant fire tail on it just streaking across the sky!" He grabbed his camera then rolled for three minutes as the object crawled across the horizon. "At first I thought it was a meteor but it was moving way too slow. Meteors usually go a lot faster."
KHOU 11 News was curious about the fireball too so asked Patricia Reiff, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University. "What we are seeing is a fireball or a bolide," Reiff explained. A type of meteor. "Usually they don't linger quite so long, so this is exceptional because of how long it stayed in the air!" Reiff says that when a meteor nearly misses the earth and skims the atmosphere as it comes around the world, it slows the speed down significantly. A slow moving meteor can make one full swing around the world before crashing or disintegrating.
The fireball Sterling captures is similar to the one that fell on Russia in 2013. "A really dangerous meteor happens very seldom," explained Reiff. "Even the one in Russia last year nobody was hurt by the meteor, what hurt people was the breaking glass caused by the sonic boom."
Thousands of meteors fall to earth every day. Most are the size of a grain of sugar, dozens the size of a coffee cup but the one that Sterling saw was the approximate size of a microwave. Only one that size falls a day around the entire world. The chances of someone ever seeing one are slim. "I was freaking out!" said Sterling. "Definitely I didn't know what it could've been. I thought it was going to crash somewhere and cause some serious damage! Never seen anything like that before. Ever."
And chances are he never will again.
Comment: Apparently this "expert" is unaware of the dramatic increase in fireballs.
Reader Comments
And who on earth believes that meteors travel at 300 miles per hour? Constant speed, completely immune from atmospheric friction so they don't slow down and are uninfluenced by gravity. In my experience rock fall not levitate.
My guess it is a turbo-prop aircraft. It leaves a trail but seems too slow to be a jet as the claim is it was flying along for 30 minutes within seeing distance.
My guess it is a turbo-prop aircraft. It leaves a trail but seems too slow to be a jet as the claim is it was flying along for 30 minutes within seeing distance.
The higher up in the atmosphere a meteor travels, the slower it appears to be moving as viewed from the ground.
There is slow
...and there is slow.
Meteors travel between 25,000 and 160,000 mph. So the slowest possible meteor would travel 12,500 miles in the 30 minutes of the video or half way around the world. To travel 125 miles would therefore take 36 seconds neglecting gravity and atmospheric friction of course. The object is obviously in the atmosphere as it leaves a trail.
Do I need to say more?
...and there is slow.
Meteors travel between 25,000 and 160,000 mph. So the slowest possible meteor would travel 12,500 miles in the 30 minutes of the video or half way around the world. To travel 125 miles would therefore take 36 seconds neglecting gravity and atmospheric friction of course. The object is obviously in the atmosphere as it leaves a trail.
Do I need to say more?
[Link]
Watch the video in the above link - Although the Professor of physics and astronomy featured at 0:48 on the video explains that it is a meteor/fireball, how slow it moves is supposed to be rare.
As you comment on every slow moving fireball/meteor not being the case, I remember there have be quite a few over the recent past and the rare is becoming common place if you take a wide enough view. Lots going on in the skies.
Watch the video in the above link - Although the Professor of physics and astronomy featured at 0:48 on the video explains that it is a meteor/fireball, how slow it moves is supposed to be rare.
As you comment on every slow moving fireball/meteor not being the case, I remember there have be quite a few over the recent past and the rare is becoming common place if you take a wide enough view. Lots going on in the skies.
I had another look. It is a jet. Rocks tent to fall down. This one has wings and a power source.
SoTT does sometimes put on meteors and fireballs which is good.
If SoTT wants I could photograph a hundred of these fireballs in a day and send them in if you like?
And yes there has been a very marked and worrying increase in the number of fireballs. While some of this could be due to increased reporting I would think most is a real increase.
SoTT does sometimes put on meteors and fireballs which is good.
If SoTT wants I could photograph a hundred of these fireballs in a day and send them in if you like?
And yes there has been a very marked and worrying increase in the number of fireballs. While some of this could be due to increased reporting I would think most is a real increase.
No, you don't need to say any more. You don't understand anything about meteor fireballs and plasma physics.
Would any of you go to work or pay taxes if they told the truth?
Been quite the increase in what appears to be icy bodies falling from the sky...slow moving icy bodies that seem to break up and fall very very slowly.
Been quite the increase in what appears to be icy bodies falling from the sky...slow moving icy bodies that seem to break up and fall very very slowly.
The usual contrail. In fact it is a particularly slow aircraft, surprising it didn't just fall out of the sky. Usual dusk/dawn orange coloration.
Usual baloney.