Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 5

Friday night sky lights up with possible meteor over Ohio

Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch
Sat, 28 Sep 2013 23:19 UTC
The Columbus area was bathed in the eerie light of an apparent exploding meteor that streaked through the sky late Friday night.

A brilliant flash of light about 11:30 p.m. prompted some people to call Columbus police to ask about its origin while officers chatted about the event over their radios. Employees at WBNS-TV (Channel 10) said they couldn't keep up with the phone calls they were getting from people who had spotted the streaking light.

Dozens of people took to Twitter to report they had seen a brilliant meteor tracing across the night sky. "Like a shooting star, but 500x brighter," one person wrote.

"I saw it in Hilliard. Sky lit up like lightning and then saw the vapor trail change from blue to purple to orange for 20 to 30 seconds," wrote another.

Others reported that the meteor and its accompanying flash of light were seen over a wide area, including south of Columbus in Hocking and Ross counties.

There also were reports of it being seen in other states in the Midwest, the East and parts of Canada.
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Fireball 2

Yet another fireball lights up early-morning sky in U.S. Midwest, American Meteor Society says September 2013 most active month since it began tracking in 2005

Meredith Rodriguez
ChicagoTribune.com
Fri, 27 Sep 2013 10:07 UTC
Many Chicagoans' daily commutes were made extraordinary Thursday morning by a fireball that flashed across the sky shortly after 6 a.m. In the seconds before the fireball disappeared, WGN-TV helicopter pilot Mike Sypien saw a burning green and red ball of light, which he described as moving faster than an airplane across the sky."My photographer was like, 'Holy cow, did you see that?' " Sypien said. "It was very vivid. It was very bright. It almost looked like somebody took a flare and threw it across our windshield."

Other news helicopter pilots who were also hovering over traffic exclaimed through their radios simultaneously, Sypien said. People across the Midwest, from Illinois to Tennessee and from Iowa across to Ohio, alerted the American Meteor Society, which received more than 400 online reports by Thursday afternoon.

Reports described the fireball as orange, yellow or white. Many wrote that it exploded as it descended. Almost all said it was like nothing they had ever seen. "I've been flying over 14 years," Sypien said. "I've never seen anything like that. You could not have missed it, I'll tell you."

This was the 13th "significant" meteor event in the United States this month, making September the most active month since the American Meteor Society began tracking them in 2005, according to Mike Hankey, a meteor observer for the society.
Image
© Kevin Keadle, Palatine, IllinoisPhotograph taken by Kevin Keadle of Palatine of a meteor that streaked across the dawn sky in the Midwest this morning.

Comment: The "13th significant meteor" spotted in the U.S. for September? Just scan SOTT's "Fire In The Sky" category - they are being seen in the U.S. and world wide almost daily. Something is afoot on the BBM...

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Meteor

Meteor reports centered on Indiana


TheIndyChannel.com
Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:26 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Observers report early-morning meteor.

A meteor streaked through the pre-dawn sky across parts of the Midwest early Thursday morning and was fairly widely seen across much of Indiana.

The American Meteor Society had received more than 130 reports of the meteor, which appeared shortly after 7 a.m.

Many of those reports came from Indiana.

"There was definitely a bright streak behind it, but I think I saw a small flame trail," read one report on the AMS site from someone in Indianapolis.

"This is the first time I have seen such a phenomenon so close and dramatic," read another report from Pendleton. "I thought at first that as it slowed, it would impact the ground, but it burned out above the ground."

Another observer from Indiana said he also heard a sound.
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Fireball 2

Boom felt, bright light fills the sky over South Dakota

Devon Boen
The Gillette News Record
Wed, 25 Sep 2013 17:45 UTC
A surreal bright blue color illuminated the entire sky and was accompanied by a thunderous boom at about 9 p.m. Monday.

People from all parts of Campbell County can attest to witnessing the strange phenomenon that lasted only a few seconds.

Whendi Kiewel thought a plane was crashing right before her eyes as she drove her twin boys home from Rapid City, S.D. They were near Inyan Kara and the interstate exit for the Keyhole Reservoir when it happened.

"The sky just completely lit up. I couldn't figure out what it was," Kiewel said.

The sky was bright blue and it looked as though a massive shooting star was falling from the sky for about 30 seconds, Kiewel said. She, along with others, believe that the fireball was a meteorite.

"You could see it breaking apart and then it just kind of burned out," Kiewel said.

Many people heard a noise resembling loud thunder, but Kiewel and her sons only got to watch the show.

"I can't quit thinking about it," Kiewel said. "It was the most amazing thing."
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Fireball

Huge meteor flashes across Alberta sky

Tamara Elliott
Global News Canada
Wed, 25 Sep 2013 17:37 UTC

Calgary- An incredible fireball shooting across the Alberta sky has been caught on tape.

Around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, a RCMP officer was driving down the highway near Manning when he saw the bright meteor flash in front of him.

His patrol camera was recording at the time, and it was all captured on video.

A community astronomer at the Telus World of Science confirmed that the sighting was in fact a meteor.
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Fireball 4

Meteor that streaked across Wyoming seen for 500 miles

Laura Hancock
Star-Tribune
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 19:03 UTC
Wyoming Fireball
© American Meteor Society
On Monday night, Casper resident Anne Ladd was driving on U.S. Highway 20 between Casper and Shoshoni when she caught in the corner of her eye a flash of green light, descending from the sky.

"It looked like it burned out before it hit the ground," she said. "But it got really close to the ground."

Ladd likely saw a fireball, a meteor brighter than the planet Venus, said Mike Hankey, a volunteer with the American Meteor Society.

About 25 people from Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and Utah reported to the society that they witnessed the 9 p.m. spectacle.

Campbell County Undersheriff Scott Matheney told the Gillette News Record on Tuesday that people called to report a loud, thunder-like noise and bright flashes of light.
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Fireball 5

Loud boom remains a North Whidbey mystery

Janis Reid
Whidbey News-Times
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:22 UTC
Washington state - A loud sound, described by many who heard it as a "boom," occurred around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday in the Crescent Harbor area.

The source of the noise remains undetermined.

On the Whidbey News-Times' Facebook page, some speculated it was aircraft operations in the area or an unintended sonic boom.

While air operations were being conducted that morning, representatives at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station said that they weren't doing any sort of training or operations that would have caused the noise.

The boom sent some Oak Harbor residents rushing outside to look up to the sky.

Aircraft could be heard flying overhead in Oak Harbor at the time of the boom.

Troy Taylor and Mike Harris were working at Jiffy Lube on State Highway 20 in Oak Harbor when they heard a sound that Taylor compares to a gunshot or car backfiring.
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Fireball 5

Sheriff's office can't confirm meteor was source of noise over Kentucky county

Paul Wallem
Basin Radio Network
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 12:38 UTC
Meteor
© Basin Radio Network

If you heard a loud thunder-like noise a little after 9:00 p.m. Monday, you are not the only one. Campbell County Under Sheriff Scott Matheny said his office fielded some calls inquiring about the sound.

"Campbell County Sheriff's Department received several reports from residents in southern Campbell County of a loud noise that was somewhat like thunder but only longer in duration.

Some reported seeing a bright flash along with that We checked with the National Weather Service, we thought it might be a possible meteorite or even an earthquake, but they wouldn't release any information until they were done investigating."

Gillette residents in the Westover Subdivision and Lakeland Hills area also heard the yet unidentified sound.
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Fireball

Flashback Comet 209P/LINEAR: Meteor Storm Brewing for 2014?


SKY & Telescope
Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
On May 24, 2014, Earth will plow through a dense stream of dust particles shed by Comet 209P/LINEAR. Dynamicists think the crossing could result in an intense meteor shower - maybe even a "storm" - and North Americans will have front-row seats.

Over the past two decades, celestial dynamicists have gotten very good at divining when meteoric activity will spike. Their computer models can track how dust ejected by a comet near each perihelion pass gets distributed into strands of particles over time. Their calculations show that dust tends to stay concentrated close to the nucleus, and that the strands themselves often converge in space close to the orbit's perihelion.

comet linear
© NASA / JPL / HorizonsAccording to predictions, a little-known comet will pass perihelion in early May of 2014 and, two weeks later, sandblast Earth with dust particles spread along its orbit.
Now these number-crunchers are telling us make sure May 24, 2014, is circled on our skywatching calendars. On that date, we might experience the most dramatic display of "shooting stars" in more than a decade.

The source of all this buzz is a little-known periodic comet called 209P/LINEAR. Discovered by an automated sky survey in 2004, it follows a looping but relatively tight path that carries it just inside Earth's orbit every 5.04 years. According to dynamicist Syuichi Nakano, Comet 209P/LINEAR's next perihelion occurs on May 6, 2014, at a point 0.969 astronomical unit from the Sun and with Earth not far away.

Just 18 days later, we should cross through dozens of particle streams shed during past orbits. The predictions are still rough, but three different models suggest the sky show could be spectacular. "All the trails ejected between 1803 and 1924 cross Earth's path in May 2014," notes Jérémie Vaubaillon (IMCEE, France). "As a consequence, this shower might as well be a storm," with the potential to see more than 1,000 meteors per hour under ideal conditions.
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Fireball 5

Hundreds spot fireball streak across Texas

Sam Womack
Statesman.com
Sun, 22 Sep 2013 15:15 UTC

Hundreds of people across Texas flocked online to report seeing a bright ball of light in the sky around 9 p.m. Saturday.

People in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Plano, Waco and Abilene, among other cities, described a brilliant flash or a white fireball. Some even caught colors and a sparkling tail.

Most reported seeing one, while a few spotted a second, smaller flash.

A witness in Georgetown said it looked like a firework about to explode in a report submitted to the American Meteor Society.

A Reddit poster said they were facing northwest from the University of Texas campus when they saw a bright light.

And a Smithville volunteer firefighter posted on Facebook that she spotted "the most brilliant, enormous falling star" begin as a green streak and then explode into a white fireball with orange projectiles.
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