Fire in the SkyS


Fireball

Mysterious blast lights up sky over Eastern Siberia


Moscow - An explosion of unclear origin illuminated the sky over eastern Siberia on Thursday morning, leaving frightened locals to speculate about an asteroid or malfunctioning rocketry, media reports said.

The blast, for which no official explanation has been offered, was witnessed by the population of the Kyrgydai village in Russia's Yakutia region, the Vesti14.ru news website said.

Two extremely grainy videos from surveillance cameras documenting the alleged blast - or at least a bright flash in the sky - are available on YouTube.

Reports said some debris apparently plummeted into the taiga after the explosion, but nothing had been recovered by the time of this article's publication.

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Fireball lights up New Mexico sky, 6 March 2014


Albuquerque - There was fire in the sky last night following by a huge boom. It happened last night about 11:45 and it was captured by the Lamy Observatory. The streak across the sky has been classified as a Meteor Fireball.

The classification is often determined by how bright it appears. In this case it was brighter than Venus and even the moon.
Fireball over New Mexico
© Screen Capture
People in Albuquerque's north valley tell KRQE News 13 it was so loud their houses shook. They wonder if the meteor actually crashed here but there's no evidence it did.

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Fireball explodes over Yellowknife, Canada - Witnesses say it 'turned night sky blue', 6 March 2014

Meteor
© Yuichi TakasakaI was leading Aurora Photography Tour in Yellowknife again this March tonight. We had quite colourful Auroras all night, all of sudden at 02:13 local time, one shooting star started from Western sky and exploded towards North. It got so bright that I had to close my eyes like someone used electric flash in front of me. A few minutes later, we could hear the huge explosion from the direction of the fireball fell. What an exciting night!!!

Montreal - A fireball exploded and lit up the skies over Yellowknife early Thursday morning, but was not believed to have caused any damage.

One expert compared it to a similar incident that took place over Montreal last November. An image of the explosion was posted on the website of Spaceweather.com. It was captured by a photographer who was leading a tour of the Aurora Borealis.

The exploding meteor was described as being so bright that it turned the night sky blue. Peter Brown, a physics professor at Western University in London, Ont., viewed the photo of the bright fireball, which he calculated was less than one metre in size.

He told The Canadian Press the fact that there was an explosion meant the object had probably penetrated deep into the atmosphere.

But Brown said that he was almost certain the explosive force was too weak to cause any damage. He added that the view of an exploding fireball is something that people might only see once a year.

The Western University physics professor noted the meteor that exploded over the skies of Montreal in November 2013 created a thundering boom, but it also shook houses.

The two fireballs over Yellowknife and Montreal paled in comparison to what happened over Chelyabinsk, Russia just over a year ago. That's when a meteor estimated to be about 10 tons exploded over the Ural Mountains on Feb. 15, 2013 with the power of an atomic bomb. The sonic blasts from that fireball shattered windows and injured about 1,000 people.

Source: The Canadian Press

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Fireball over Mexico City?


Comment: Two different Youtube users published today videos of an alleged fireball. Interestingly, the planes flying at a close distance from it do not leave any contrails, while the luminous object does. Unfortunately, the quality of the footage is not high enough for us to be able to say with certainty whether it was a fireball or not.


meteoro
© Manito Channel
"Adrian Gamer" published the following video (the phenomenon was observed by several school children at the same time. They speculate on it being a "rocket", then a "missile"):


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Spectacular meteor shone brightly over Kenya, then explodes; house burned

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© Mendosa.comThe Rift Valley in Kenya
While calm appears restored in most parts of the Rift Valley that were left shell-shocked on Thursday night following the explosion of an astronomical body, the identity of the phenomenon is still shrouded in mystery. The object shone bright in the dark sky before exploding.

People scampered for safety at the sight of the body and the subsequent explosion with reports of wailing and panic reported across the more than three counties where the astronomical body was seen. Facebook and other social network platforms were abuzz soon after the extraterrestrial incident.

The panic was felt from Kuresoi to Uasin Gishu and the areas in between while on the networks, people were making wild and educated guesses. Speculation was that the astronomical body was either a meteorite or a comet. "I saw it. It was big and spectacular," said Mike Kimani, a resident of Kericho. There were reports that the body left some destruction on its trail.

From LunarMeteoriteHunters website: Initial Meteor Sighting Report-
27FEB2014 Gerald Eldama Ravine, Kenya 20.10 pm Over 30 seconds not clear Loud explosions 10 times louder than thunder Super bright not clear Multiple witness reports. A super bright light that lasted for a span of 30 seconds was spotted in the sky at about 8:10pm today. It was later followed by a deafening bang around Torongo and Poror areas of Eldama Ravine. Many who did not manage to see the bright light though heard the sound believed it was an explosion. The light was seen by many as far as Marigat and Eldoret.

Comment: The last event mentioned happened in July, where two meteors hit and made impact with the ground in Kenya, two weeks apart. Heavenly Signs: Chronicle of a Busy Month (July 2011)


Fireball

Massive meteor fireball reported over U.S. Northeast, 24 February 2014

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© amsmeteors.orgAMS received 160 reports about this fireball seen over Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ontario, Pennsylvania and Virginia on February 25th 2014 around 02:12 (UTC).

A large and bright fireball was seen and reported by approx. 100 witnesses across Northern US East Coast (February 24th 2014, 9:11pm EST - February 25th 2014, 2:11pm UT).

The fireball was seen from primarily New Jersey but witnesses from Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virgina also reported seeing the fireball.

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Massive meteor fireball caught on police dashcam, seen from all nearly entire Eastern half of U.S., 27 February 2014

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© ethanrogati.comPhoto of the fireball over America, Thursday night, 27 February 2014
Look, up in the sky! A bird? A plane? Superman? No, just a bright white fireball captured on video in a Madison police officer's squad car.


Comment: "Just" a bright white fireball?! Wow, talk about normalizing something that until last year was being described as "so rare it almost never happens"!


On a cold Wednesday night on the city's West Side, a veteran police officer saw something not normally seen when on patrol, Madison police said in a news release.

"The officer was parked near the Hy-Vee store at Westgate Mall when just before midnight, a large, bright white fireball pierced the cold night sky," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain.

"The object was moving extremely fast and would have without question struck the ground," the officer said in his report.


Comment: This gives you an idea how unusual this phenomenon is: it's not generally known that most fireballs do not in fact impact the ground.


A fellow officer driving on Old Sauk Road also saw the same "long fire trail," the release said.

Comment: It appears that the police officer witnessed the same massive fireball seen over the entire Eastern half of the U.S. on Thursday night. Although it can seem like these things impact nearby, they're actually burning up and breaking apart so high up in the atmosphere (most of the time!) that it's very difficult to tell what state you'll find meteorites in, let alone the next town over.


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Meteor seen across Italy and Southern France, February 22, 2014

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Meteor seen in Italy (shortly before?), and shared in Twitter
Translated by SOTT.net

Just as reported by Mlactu yesterday evening, a meteor blazed across the sky in Southern France on Saturday, February 22nd, at around 8pm. It was seen in Corsica, the in Bouches-du Rhôme (Marseille, Fréjus, Fos-sur-Mer and even in Aix-en-Provence), in the Hérault region (near Béziers) and also in the Alpes-Maritimes (Nice) and in Ardèche, after having been observed in Italy. Several witnesses share today their reports leaving comments on Mlactu.fr, confirming the sighting. Do not hesitate to do the same! Several readers wish to know what happened to the meteor they saw or heard about. Please know that Mlactu is doing its best to provide a serious and precise explanation as soon as possible.
"Seen directly from the Bastia Stadium, it was a beautiful image," says Guidicelli on Mlactu.fr. "It lasted for five seconds. It was rather large, with a yellow, red and green trail. It suddenly disappeared behind the stadium's tribune, South of the Armand Cesari Stadium".

"I thought I was crazy, nobody believed me", explains Benazeraf. I imagined it was a white shooting star but it was too big and too long for that! A white light with an orange trail, and it traveled across the sky for at least five seconds before I stopped being able to see it because of a tree that cloaked my view !"

"That's reassuring, I thought I was crazy too", adds Jenny Liegeois. "I saw it in Arcs sur Argens, a great orange fireball descending at a very high speed."

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Fireball in the sky Sunday night in Central New York

Fireball
© Ethan RogatiEthan Rogati captured this stunning view of the meteor from Milton, V.T.. It was reportedly seen as far south as Albany, and as far north as Montreal.
Syracuse -- It wasn't a bird or a plane and it certainly wasn't Superman. If you found yourself gazing at a colorful, firework-like flash of light in the sky, it was probably a meteoroid.

Dozens of people across New York State, as well as several in Central New York, reported seeing a meteoroid in the sky at about 8:45 p.m. Sunday, according to the American Meteor Society.

The scientific organization devoted to the study, investigation and tracking of meteors allows the public and trained spotters to report sightings of fireballs -- meteors brighter than the planet Venus -- online. Sunday's suspected meteoroid probably ended up somewhere in the Adirondacks, according to submitted reports.

People across Central New York described the sight in reports to the American Meteor Society.

"I was driving south when something as bright as the moon caught my eye to my left," said Drew Montreuil, a meteorologist in Groton. "I looked and saw a green fireball that appeared in my quick glance to be sparking red. It disappeared shortly thereafter."

Moon

Astronomer spots asteroid smashing into the Moon

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© IAADeep impact ... A fridge-sized asteroid makes impact with the moon in September 11th, 2013.
A Spanish astronomer on Monday said he had witnessed a fridge-sized asteroid smash into the Moon, in the biggest lunar impact by a space rock ever recorded.

The rare episode was seen by Jose Maria Madiedo, a professor at the University of Huelva, Britain's Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) said.

On September 11 last year, Madiedo was operating two lunar-observing telescopes when he spotted a flash in the Mare Nubium, an ancient, dark lava-filled basin.

The flare, which occurred at 20:07 GMT, was briefly almost as bright as the northern hemisphere's Pole Star, the RAS said. It would have been visible to the naked eye to anyone who happened to be looking at the Moon at that moment in good viewing conditions, the RAS said. There followed a long afterglow, lasting another eight seconds -- the longest and brightest ever seen for a lunar impact.