Fire in the SkyS


Camera

Two photographers,100 miles apart, capture same bright meteor fireball as it flies over Arizona

Deborah Byrd
EarthSky
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 17:56 UTC
Fireball over Gold Canyon, AZ
© Joanne WestTaurid fireball over Gold Canyon, AZ
As the Orionids were peaking this past weekend, at least two members of the EarthSky community caught bright meteors in the long-lasting Taurid shower. The two meteor photos on this page appear to show the same bright meteor, although these photographers were separated by about 100 miles. Joanne West, whose image is above, said she caught her fireball at 10:27 p.m. on October 21 and wrote:
Had camera aimed at eastern sky in dark desert area near Superstition Mountains in Gold Canyon. I had been making 20-second exposures continually for about 30 minutes. Grace was with me as my camera shutter happened to be open when this fireball came out of the sky from the Taurus constellation.

Nikon D750, 20mm Nikon lens. Processed the raw file to adjust the foreground brightness and darken the highlights of the meteor.
Thanks, Joanne! Meanwhile, some 100 miles (about 150 km) to the south, Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona also caught a bright Taurid fireball at 10:27 p.m. on the evening of October 21 ...
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Fireball 5

Burning meteor fireball passes over Brecon Beacons, South Wales

Laura Dale
Story Trender
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 15:37 UTC
Meteor fireball over South Wales
© Chris Pomeroy
This dramatic fireball appears to tear the night sky apart and bring daylight shining through.

The extremely bright meteor was captured racing past Earth during the Orionids Meteor shower.

In the foreground a quiet country lane winds over the Brecon Beacons National Park.

The photograph was taken by RAF personnel Chris Pomeroy, from Pontypridd in South Wales, just after midnight on October 21.

Chris, 34, said: "I was photographing the Orionids Meteor shower. The camera was set up and I was taking random exposures hoping to capture a meteor.

"During one exposure I captured what seemed at the time, to the naked eye, to be an extremely bright shooting star that lasted only for about a second.
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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball seen over Bellingham Bay, Washington

Robert Mittendorf
The Bellingham Herald
Thu, 26 Oct 2017 14:31 UTC
meteor
File image
Firefighters searched Bellingham Bay and the surrounding shoreline Tuesday night after least two Whatcom County residents called 911, reporting they had seen an aircraft engulfed in flames crash into Bellingham Bay.

What people likely saw was a fireball, officials said — but one more properly called a meteor. Several Whatcom County residents saw it, too, but they recognized the blazing streak as a shooting star at 7:38 p.m. Tuesday.

"It was green, very bright, and super fast heading north," said Bridgett Bullard of Blaine. "I saw it while I was getting onto I-5 northbound at Bakerview. My sister saw it and she was on Grandview in Birch Bay."

Others were convinced they had seen an aircraft hit the water. Fire crews and other units were sent to investigate, including the fireboat Salish Star.

"Report of a plane seen going down in the area, Kwina Road and Haxton, in the water," a dispatcher said, according to emergency radio traffic archived online.
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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball lights up the sky in Port Lincoln, South Australia; massive bangs heard

Elizabeth Henson
news.com.au
Fri, 27 Oct 2017 14:18 UTC
The fireball that travelled across the Eyre Peninsula on Thursday night.
© Desert Fireball Network, Curtin UniversityThe fireball that travelled across the Eyre Peninsula on Thursday night.
A meteor research centre has captured an image of a fireball that lit up the sky over the Eyre Peninsula and reportedly caused the ground and buildings to shake at Port Lincoln.

The bright blue meteor shot across the sky just after 11pm and was spotted by people as far away as Adelaide.

Port Lincoln resident Lila Watson was driving home when she saw what she initially thought was a shooting star.

"It just got bigger and bigger and it was just this big flash across the sky and there were sparks coming off it," she told The Advertiser.

"It just lit the sky up and I saw it go southeast.

"I pulled up home and I heard two massive bangs, maybe a second apart, and then the sky lit up again."

"It definitely shook the ground - I just felt the whole earth shake twice."
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Meteor

Mystery booms heard in North Carolina, Michigan and Queensland

Brett Tingley
Mysterious Universe
Wed, 11 Oct 2017 18:56 UTC
meteorite
Mystery booms seem to be occurring with increasing frequency lately, with booms being heard just this week in North Carolina and Michigan. In both cases, authorities have been left baffled by what might be behind these earth-shaking noises which seem to emanate from the sky itself. This unexplained phenomenon is host to a wide variety of explanations including gas escaping vents deep within the Earth, anomalous meteorological events, sonic booms from tests of secret military aircraft, UFOs of course, and meteorites exploding in the atmosphere. While most of these eerie thunderous noises go unexplained, a recent mystery boom in Australia might have a simple, cosmic - and terrifying - explanation.

Death from above.

The boom was heard by residents throughout the Cairns region of Queensland, Australia marking the second time in two months that southern Australia has been rocked by anomalous explosions in the sky. The boom occurred around 10:30 pm on Saturday, October 7th and was reportedly so loud that it shook houses in the area.

Comment: Another boom was heard in North Carolina a week or so after the one reported above: Home-shaking, loud boom heard around Southport, Oak Island, North Carolina

A Cairns resident checked out the Australian boom and sent a video to the Cairns Post of a possible crater; no sign of a meteorite, just an ash-filled hole in the ground.

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Sherlock

South Jersey rattled by mystery booms - officials investigating

Cleve Bryan
CBS
Thu, 26 Oct 2017 13:47 UTC
map sout New Jersey
A loud boom and shaking sensation was reported throughout Southern New Jersey on Wednesday morning that baffled people from the Shore to Burlington County.

"There were calls into the 911 center and we didn't know anything about it at the time, so no action was taken," North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello said.

So what was it?

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center says there was not any seismic activity but detected a possible sonic boom about 9 miles off North Wildwood at 10:18 a.m.

In other words - it was probably a high speed jet.

Comment: "Mystery booms' appear to be occurring with increasing frequency around the world. Not all of them can be chalked up to military training. A very small sample from the SOTT archives. The one possible explanation that is not being put forward is the overhead explosions could be caused by micrometeorites exploding in the atmosphere without being detected first. Fireball counts have been rising exponentially in the last decade. Here is SOTT events mapping service for just the last year. (Click play button to see stats.)



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Fireball 2

Meteorite slams into businessman's roof in Paarl, South Africa

Marvin Charles
IOL
Wed, 25 Oct 2017 09:26 UTC
There is apparently a one in four billion chance of a meteorite hitting a building, but it happened to business owner Fagrie Allie
© Henk KrugerThere is apparently a one in four billion chance of a meteorite hitting a building, but it happened to business owner Fagrie Allie
He heard a loud thump and thought it was an intruder trying to steal from his furniture shop. Never in his wildest dreams did he think the "intruder" was from a galaxy far away.

Fagrie Allie, who owns a furniture store in Paarl, was closing his shop when "I heard a loud thump along with a shattering sound and at first I thought It was an intruder but I saw the store was empty and I thought maybe one of the pieces of furniture had fallen over but I saw nothing".

He then saw dust particles coming from the ceiling but didn't take note at first.

"It bothered me because it was a really loud bang. I got into the ceiling and when I looked up at the roof sheets I saw a hole in the roof sheet itself. I came back down and found small pieces of rock lying on the floor," Allie said.
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Fireball 4

Unidentified object, possibly a meteorite, crashes down near St. John's, Canada

Ryan Cooke
CBC News Canada
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 21:46 UTC
Meteorite
© CBC News CanadaA security camera on the waterfront in St. John's captured this shot of a light falling from the sky near the South Side Hills, across the harbour.
Andrew Wilkins was eating dinner at a downtown St. John's pub, looking out over the city's iconic harbour, when a flash of green light caught his attention.

"The whole sky just lit up," he said. "It was coming in on a 45 degree angle, coming down to the right."

Wilkins stopped eating and stared as the moving ball of light crashed down on the opposite side of the harbour, towards the largely uninhabited Southside Hills area.

He paused to determine if he could hear a crash, but the noisy chatter of the busy pub prevented him from hearing any sound the flash of light may have made.

"It was like a big green ball of fire, is what it looked like. At first I thought, 'Wow, geez, that's a really bright firework,' but fireworks don't shoot downwards."
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Fireball 4

Bright meteor fireball explodes over southeastern Poland


Sott.net
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 20:02 UTC
meteor fireball over Poland
A bright meteor fireball exploded over southeastern Poland on 16th October just before midnight. The phenomenon was captured by stations of the Polish Fireball Network (PFN) reported wmeritum.pl.

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Fireball

The mystery boom that shook northeast British Columbia was probably a fireball says astronomer


CBC News
Fri, 20 Oct 2017 07:00 UTC
Meteor from Perseid shower
© Ognen Teofilovski/ReutersA meteor streaks across the sky during the Perseid meteor shower at a windmill farm near Bogdanci, south of Skopje, in the early morning August 13, 2014. Astronomer Ken Tapping said it's rare to have advance warnings of meteors entering specific regions.
The source of a loud bang followed by shaking in northeast B.C., that caused confusion for residents, was likely a meteor shooting through the sky, says a B.C. astronomer.

"It's entirely consistent with it being a large fireball," said Ken Tapping, a National Research Council of Canada astronomer.

Residents who experienced the event said it sounded like the object was just outside their homes.

"It was like when a shotgun goes off and you're right beside it," said Donna Taylor of Charlie Lake, a small community northwest of Fort St. John, who was in her home when she heard the noise around 11 pm Wednesday night.

"I thought somebody threw something against my place or ran into it, because all the windows shook."

Jessica Krupp was in bed when the noise woke her up. "It sounded like a fuse blew or something electrical kind of snapped or crackled," she said. "Like an explosion almost.I thought a truck blew up or something."
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