Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 2

Meteor fireball recorded over Southern Germany

OGVT - Observatoire géophysique, Val Terbi
YouTube
Sat, 11 Mar 2017 08:10 UTC
meteor fireball over Southern Germany
© YouTube/OGVT - Observatoire géophysique, Val Terbi (screen capture)
#Meteor over Southern #Germany recorded in #Montsevelier #ValTerbi #Jura on 03/11/2017, 00:57:43 UTC


Comment: A meteor was recorded from the same observatory four hours earlier over the Canton Ticino region of Southern Switzerland.

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Fireball 4

Bright green, fragmenting meteor fireball reported over northern UK


Sott.net
Thu, 02 Mar 2017 17:24 UTC
meteor fireball map northern UK
© Google/AMS (screen capture)
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 24 reports about a fireball seen over England and Scotland on Wednesday, March 1st 2017 around 18:54 UT.

Responding to a request by the UK Meteor Network for information, some tweets include:

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Fireball

Loud boom and reports of fireball sighting over Texas

Mark Rowlett
KTXS 12ABC
Mon, 27 Feb 2017 01:30 UTC
Meteor over Abilene
© KTXS 12 ABC
Abilene - Many people reported to KTXS that they saw a fireball moving across the sky Sunday evening just before 9 p.m. Most of the reports came from an area from Abilene to Snyder.

People in the Snyder region also reported hearing a boom like that of a transformer failing or a sonic boom that a jet might create.

Based on the reports, it appears that something fell from the sky and got close enough to the ground that the sonic boom it created was audible to people on the ground in parts of our area. However, we have not received any reports of anything crashing to the ground.

The object could have been man-made space debris like a piece from a spent rocket. But we have not heard of any of these reentries from NASA or our military. More likely it was a piece of "rock" wandering around in our solar system that fell into our atmosphere.

As the object falls deeper into our atmosphere friction with air molecules increases and heats the object. This creates the streak of light in the sky. Most of the time the falling object burns up before hitting the ground.Since the falling object is likely traveling at several thousand miles per hour, it creates a sonic boom. If it is close enough to the ground, we may hear it.

Checking for a possible noise maker, the USGS earthquake site indicates no measured earthquakes in the state of Texas Sunday or Sunday evening.


Comment: Footage of the meteor was also captured by a police officer in Weatherford, Texas.



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Fireball 4

Meteor fireball sighted over South Island, New Zealand


Otago Daily Times
Fri, 24 Feb 2017 19:20 UTC
Otago Meteor
© Photo Twitter (@iangriffin)Clear skies around the country allowed for sightings of what may have been a meteor (not pictured) last night.
Reports of a bright light shooting across the skies last night have come in from around the country, including Dunedin.

ODT Online submitter Peter Simkins relates looking out of his window in Broad Bay towards Port Chalmers and seeing a ''yellow streak of light plummeting to earth''.

Other sightings have come in from in Blenheim, Porirua, Lake Ferry, Martinborough and New Plymouth.

Some people posted on social media about seeing the sky light up, while others described the light as being green in colour. Fairfax is this morning reporting that it may have been may be a Russian cargo rocket re-entering the earth's atmosphere.

One woman posted on Facebook that she saw the light in Lower Hutt.

"Yup saw it clearly in Lower Hutt. It was huge and the tail colorful."

The Herald was unable to contact an expert to comment on the sighting tonight, but a person at the University of Canterbury's Mt John Observatory said descriptions provided indicated people had seen a meteor.

According to Nasa, small chunks of rock and debris in space are called meteoroids.

They become meteors, or shooting stars, when they fall through a planet's atmosphere; leaving a bright trail as they are heated to incandescence by the friction of the atmosphere. Pieces that survive the journey and hit the ground are called meteorites.
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Fireball

Three meteor fireballs reported over Cheltenham, UK in two days

Phil Norris
Gloucestershire Live
Mon, 20 Feb 2017 23:39 UTC
Brockworth fireball
© Via Facebook/Stef Kotwica
Did you see two fireballs in the sky above Cheltenham on Sunday evening?

We have been contacted by someone who said they saw the phenomenon as they drove along Princess Elizabeth Way.

He asked us via twitter: "Seen two fireballs in the sky when heading down Princess Elizabeth Way. Heard anything?" He added that he was driving with his son and noticed two bright lights which dimmed and left smoke trails. I really can't believe me and my son would have been the only ones to see them, they were bright enough," he said.

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Fireball 3

Bright meteor fireball seen over northern U.S and Canada

TW
The Watchers
Sat, 18 Feb 2017 15:52 UTC
Fireball over Pennsylvania
A very bright fireball was seen in the northern US and Canada around 04:53 UTC on February 18, 2017. The event was captured in 3 NASA all-sky cameras and cameras belonging to the Southern Ontario Meteor Network.

Analysis of the video data shows that the meteor was first detectable at an altitude of 83 km (52 miles) above US Highway 219, southeast of the Pennsylvania town of DuBois. It then moved northeast some 42 km (26 miles) through the atmosphere at almost exactly 64 400 km/h (40 000 mph), ablating 42 km above the countryside just north of Winslow Hill, NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) said.

The camera data shows very little deceleration of the meteor, which gives it a poor chance of producing meteorites, MEO said and added that more analysis is required to rule this out. "The object had the brightness of a quarter Moon, which means we are dealing with an asteroid fragment weighing about 9 kg (20 pounds), with a diameter of roughly 18 cm (7 inches)."

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Fireball 2

Bright meteor fireball lights up sky in Southern Alabama

Fernando Soto
Local15 NBC
Sun, 19 Feb 2017 18:19 UTC
Alabama Fireball
© NASAThe reports of sound indicate that it penetrated fairly low into the atmosphere before fragmenting, perhaps as low as 14 miles in altitude.
Local 15 has confirmed with NASA that a bright meteor was seen just after 9 p.m. Saturday.

Saturday night reports began circulating on social media about a large fireball in the sky and a loud boom. Residents in Southern Alabama reported that they heard a loud boom that shook their homes. NASA says that the fireball first appeared to the Northeast of Mobile and moved west at about 56,000 miles per hour.

The average brightness is that of the Full Moon, leading experts to believe that it was probably about a foot or two in diameter. Using eyewitness reports and a software tool to derive a ground track NASA was able to conclude that the best reports indicate the meteor broke apart above U.S. 43, just North of Mobile.

The reports of sound indicate that it penetrated fairly low into the atmosphere before fragmenting, perhaps as low as 14 miles in altitude.

Comment: This meteor was also reported in western Florida.

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Fireball

Valentine's Day meteor fireball spotted over Eastern US


The American Meteor Society
Thu, 16 Feb 2017 18:48 UTC
Meteor Over Eastern US
© Chris Wolf/AMSAMS Event#614-2017 – screeenshot of a video shared by Chris Wolf on the AMS Website.
53 reports from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Maryland

The AMS has received 63 reports so far about of a fireball event over seen over Pennsylvania on Tuesday, February 14th 2017 around 08:32pm EST (Feb 15th - 01:39 UT.). The fireball was seen primarily from Pennsylvania but witnesses from Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland also reported the event. Some witnesses described the meteor as orange, yellow and white. After a fairly extensive investigation, we came to the conclusion that it wasn't Cupidon but a bright meteor.

First Estimated Trajectory

The map below shows the witnesses location with the first estimated trajectory. The preliminary estimated trajectory plotted from the witness reports shows the meteor was traveling from the West to the East and ended its flight somewhere over Scranton, PA.
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Meteor

Mystery object (possibly a meteorite) lands in UK garden after loud thump in middle of night

Saiqa Chaudhari
Bury Times
Thu, 09 Feb 2017 06:22 UTC
meteorite falls england
© Bury Times
This mysterious rock like object is causing quite a stir in Lowercroft.

Now the couple in whose garden it was found are hoping someone may be able to shed some light on what it is — and where it came from.

Pauline and Norman Pollard were baffled to discover the striking black and yellow material in their garden, just days after hearing a loud noise.

Initially the couple thought it may be a meteorite - and don't know whether the noise is related to the find.

Mr Pollard, who lives in Lowercroft Road, aged 74, said: "We found it in the garden after we had heard a loud bang or thump in the middle of the night, it was like a car door banging."
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Fireball 4

Bright green meteor fireball illuminates skies over Wisconsin and Illinois

Vincent Perlerin
American Meteor Society
Mon, 06 Feb 2017 08:51 UTC
meteor fireball over Lisle
© American Meteor SocietyAMS Event#454-2017 – Caught on a Police Dashcam (Lisle, IL PD)
Over 170 reports from IL, WI, MI, IN, OH, IA, NY, Ontario, KY and MN

The AMS has received over 170 reports so far (and counting...) about of a fireball event over seen over Wisconsin on Wednesday, February 6th 2017 around 01:27CST (07:31 UT.). The green fireball was seen primarily from Illinois and Wisconsin but witnesses from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, New York, Kentucky, Minessota and Ontario (Canada) also reported the event.

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