Fire in the SkyS


Sun

'Extreme' X-1 class solar storm heading towards Earth!

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© UnknownSolar storm ... A space weather projection of where the solar storm may strike.
We don't yet know when or where the highly charged ejecta from a solar eruption yesterday will hit Earth, but we know it will. The flare, rated X-1 on the solar weather forecaster's scale, is rated "extreme" - but only just.
Wide swatch CME now visible in updated LASCO C3 imagery. More to come. pic.twitter.com/FxxP9RHTFh
- SolarHam (@SolarHam) September 10, 2014
Forecasters don't yet know when the solar storm - which erupted from the Sun's surface late Wednesday - will arrive here or which part of the planet will be facing the brunt of the effects. It could arrive as early as this afternoon Australian time, or may take a few days.
Major X1.6 solar flare observed around region 2158. A fast moving CME likely associated and possibly Earth directed.pic.twitter.com/DsKsrZ74DI
- SolarHam (@SolarHam) September 10, 2014
Scientists will have a better idea after they get more satellite data. Solar flares in the "extreme" scale can cause geomagnetic storms capable of bringing down power grids, damaging satellites and disrupting radio transmissions. More often, the only effect is to brighten the auroras over the north and southern hemispheres.
Sailing through an #Aurora into #Sunrise. #SpaceVine#Timelapse. https://t.co/y5xGBLxWtQ
- Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) September 9, 2014

Fireball 5

Shock asteroid warning: Earth faces 100 years of killer strikes beginning in 2017 - or maybe even earlier?


Comment: In light of readers' feedback regarding the following article, a few comments:

The 'science' in this article isn't really defensible. It's the 'newsworthiness' of the story that stands out for SOTT.net, just the fact that ANY kind of space threat scenario is being publicized.

A couple of possibilities as to what is going on here:

The author is 'leaking info' which, though not scientifically accurate, gets that message out there that 'something wicked this way comes'.

Alternatively, the author is writing deliberately rubbish stuff that can easily be debunked, thereby debunking anyone by association who notices that something is definitely 'up'.

Maybe a bit of both is at work; maybe something else entirely. Journalistic standards aren't exactly what they might once have been, so this could simply have been a rush-job to meet the deadline for a 'sensational' story.

But consider this: while the UK's Daily Express is 'tabloid trash', it's also owned by a media baron, a British media baron, no less, who are notoriously good at 'info-crafting'. As such, most, if not all, of its content, like all MSM, is pretty carefully vetted. If you get to hear about something, then there's generally a political reason why you're getting to hear about it.

So, SOTT.net is re-posting this article - for posterity's sake if nothing else - to take note of the fact that a British media outlet has just alerted sizeable numbers of people to the reality of imminent cosmic threat, whether intentionally, as part of a 'tar-baby' maneuver, or otherwise.

The bottom line is that the planet today - in contrast with a decade ago - IS being peppered with more and more space rocks, and more and more people are starting to take notice.

The article itself may be 'noise' - and most, unaware of the extent of the space threat, would be correct to dismiss it - but we happen to know for a fact that there is a 'signal' behind it.


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© GETTYExperts predict that asteroids are to pepper the planet from 2017
Asteroids could rain down on the earth for 100 years, shocked experts have just warned.

A previously unknown asteroid belt has been located in deep space and is now hurtling towards our part of the solar system.

It means a 'global killer' could collide with Earth as soon as 2020, wiping out life as we know it and changing the climate for millennia.

The terrifying predictions came as NASA revealed disturbing new data showing 400 impacts are expected between 2017 and 2113, based on new observational data of objects seen in space over the past 60 days.

Most will have a maximum diameter of around 100 metres - the size of seven double decker buses - and the potential to cause significant damage.

Comment: The above article has since been 'debunked' here.

What its critics don't realize is that the cosmic situation is probably even more dire than sketched out by Nathan Rao.

Regular readers will be familiar with Laura Knight-Jadczyk's investigations into the planet's repeated close encounters with comet clusters down through history...

Comets and Catastrophe

The Apocalypse: Comets, Asteroids and Cyclical Catastrophes

Comets and the Horns of Moses

... which are timely in light of the significant increase in meteor fireballs in recent years. Here are just a couple of recent hits, both coming around the same time that 'harmless' Asteroid 2014 RC made its 'fly-by' last Sunday September 7th: Rao's article is an easy target. He's right to sound the alarm, though he did so for the wrong reasons: indeed the probability of direct-hit impacts from larger bodies in our near-to-medium future is probably mathematically small. The point that both Rao and his critics miss, however, is that with more objects comes more finer material - lots of it, including the threat of comet-borne viruses. These alone can have catastrophic climate change effects for people and planet. Forget an extinction-level asteroid 200 years from now: the danger from civilization-ending cosmic catastrophe is present now.

Another reason why Rao's article is an easy target is because he made the mistake of homing in on specific space rocks. There is NO WAY TO TELL what might hit, and when. The world's observatories were focused on 2012 DA14 when, 6 hours before its scheduled fly-by, another large rock - from another direction - arrived out of nowhere to explode over Chelyabinsk, Russia!

The take-home point is that - based on multiple data points - the overall level of cometary debris in the inner solar system has massively increased in recent decades, and especially since the early 2000s. As Pierre Lescaudron wrote in his recently published 'Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection':
There has been a significant increase in the discovery of asteroids in recent decades. In 1980, there were 9,000 known asteroids in the solar system. By 2000, there were 86,000. By 2007, there were 380,000. As of 2013, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center had data on 1.1 million asteroids.

Of the 1.1 million asteroids known in 2013, NASA announced the discovery of the 10,000th NEO - Near Earth Objects on Earth-crossing orbits - in June 2013. An alarming number especially when we know that most NEOs are discovered just as they fly past Earth, and very often inside lunar distance. Other estimates place between 100,000 and 1,000,000 more undiscovered NEOs on similar Earth-crossing orbits, increasing the current estimated total range of asteroids in the solar system to 100 million.

The number of discovered comets has also increased in recent years. While newly discovered comets were virtually nil at the beginning of the 1990s (for example, only one comet was discovered in 1995, namely 1995 O1 Hale-Bopp), by 2000 over 150 new comets were being discovered per year, a figure that increased to 265 by 2009. Note that the figures between 2009 and 2013 are not yet finalized. Once updated, I fully expect the final count for those years to be higher than the current count.

Rather appropriately, 2013 was declared the 'Year of the Comets', with a high number of active comets in the Sun's vicinity. By November 21st, 17 comets were visible with a small telescope, of which five exhibited a magnitude between +4 and +7.5 - meaning they could be seen with binoculars - and two of which (ISON and Encke) could be seen with the naked eye.

Remember, these are only the identified comets, bright enough to be observed at a long distance. Most 'comets' remain invisible (as 'asteroids') until they start glowing as a result of the heliosphere-induced electric stress they experience when they enter the solar system. If the exceptional fireball events in 2013 were anything to go by, 2014 may have even more celestial surprises in store for us.



Meteor

Space object slams Nicaragua's capital as asteroid passes Earth

meteor hit
© article.wn.comMeteorite leave crater in Nicaraguan capital Managua.
A blast that filled Nicaragua's 1.2 million capital Managua with dismay on Sunday night is most probably a meteorite that left a 12-meter crater near the city's airport. The space rock might be a fragment of a larger space object that passed near Earth.

"We are convinced that this was a meteorite. We have seen the impact from the crater," Wilfredo Strauss of the Seismic Institute said, as cited by the AFP.

Nicaraguan authorities are pretty sure it was a piece of an asteroid dubbed "2014 RC", an estimated 20-meter large piece of rock that whizzed close past Earth, Humberto Garcia, of the Astronomy Center at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, told The Associated Press on Sunday. It was most clearly witnessed in the skies above New Zealand. At its closest, asteroid 2014 RC was a mere 34,000km from the Earth's surface, about one-tenth of the distance to the moon.

The impact was severe and was heard throughout Managua. The meteorite crashed into a wooded area close to Managua's Augusto C. Sandino International Airport around midnight and left a remarkable 12-meter diameter crater, 5 meters deep. However, no one was hurt and operations at the airport weren't interrupted.


Comment: Asteroids and meteors: Henny-Penny harbingers of things to come. A meteorite is a solid piece of debris, from such sources as asteroids or comets, that originates in outer space and survives its impact with the Earth's surface. It is called a meteoroid before its impact and may vary in size from tiny grains to large boulders.


Fireball

Great balls of fire: Meteor illuminates Spanish skyline

Spanish Meteor
© Still from Vimeo video
Early risers got an unexpected treat on Sunday in Spain, as a fireball whistled across the country - lighting up the morning sky. It passed through eight regions, traveling the length of the country, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake.

The Spanish Meteor Network confirmed the fireball had passed over the country; however, they did not know where it had originated, the Local reported.

Fireball 5

Meteor seen flashing through Albuquerque sky

Meteor
© Wikimedia Commons
It was captured at Sandia National Laboratories' Facility for Acceptance, Calibration and Testing site and officials say it's the brightest thing recorded at Sandia in the last two to three years.Sandia media relations said the white spot in the video (below) is the moon.

Around 5 a.m., viewers who saw the sky light up began calling KRQE News 13 and sent emails describing what they saw. APD also had similar reports according to the dispatcher at 242-COPS.

One viewer who was driving to the gym early Monday on Unser and McMahon said there was a bright flashing light west of him. The viewer said it was like someone took a picture in front of him with the flash on.

Fireball 2

SOTT Exclusive: Massive explosion rocks Nicaraguan capital - Did part of Asteroid 2014 RC just impact Earth?

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© El19Digital.comNicaraguan military investigators check out what appears to be an impact crater caused by a fragment from an overhead meteor/cometary explosion. Did it break off from Asteroid 2014 RC?
What was it NASA said about yesterday's 'fly-by' of Asteroid 2014 RC?
"... there will be no impact."
To their credit, they had calculated that it would pass pretty darn close, inside Earth's geosynchronous ring of communications and weather satellites, about 36,000 km from the planet's surface. What they don't factor in is that asteroids can fragment as they approach Earth, causing some fragments to change course... towards us.

A massive explosion rocked Managua, Nicaragua, around 11pm local time Saturday, September 6th. Local media are quoting local authorities as saying it was caused by an incoming meteor, which they suspect was originally part of Asteroid 2014 RC's September 7th 'fly-by'.

One of the fragments apparently made it all the way to the ground, gouging out a 12-meter wide crater next to the city's airport:


Comment:



Fireball 3

Meteor impact? Crater discovered in Managua following massive explosion

Meteorite Crater
© Tomado Del 19 Digital/ENDThe explosion left a crater 12 meters in diameter, said Wilfried Strauch, advisor of the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies, Ineter. (Google Translation)
A mysterious explosion that rocked Nicaragua's crowded capital Managua, creating a large crater, appears to have been caused by a meteorite, officials said Sunday.

Amazingly, in a sprawling city of 1.2 million people, the impact near the international airport did not cause any known injuries, but it did leave a crater measuring 12 meters (39 feet) across.

"We are convinced that this was a meteorite. We have seen the crater from the impact," said Wilfredo Strauss of the Seismic Institute.

The meteorite appeared to have hurtled into a wooded area near the airport around midnight Saturday, its thunderous impact felt across the capital.

The hit was so large that it registered on the instruments Strauss's organization uses to size up earthquakes.


Comment: For more on this and other meteor fireball reports in recent days, check out Niall Bradley's report here:

SOTT Exclusive: Massive explosion rocks Nicaraguan capital - Did part of Asteroid 2014 RC just impact Earth?


Fireball 2

Mysterious explosion lights up the sky of Corsica: Meteor disintegration?

Fireball
According to witness a large fireball exploded over Corsica lighting up the sky on August 29 2014. Stock photo only for representative purposes (not the actual bolide).
What was this mysterious explosion reported over Corsica on August 30 2014? According to witnesses, the loud boom lit up the sky.

Was it a disintegrating fireball?

In the night of Friday to Saturday, August 30, 2014, an explosion was heard at around 2am across Corsica.

From Saint Cyprien, Chera through Muratello, Alistro, Bonifacio and up to Sartene, many people have reported a loud bang literally lighting up the sky.

Although the site of the explosion has not been determined yet, police and security are investigating the source of this detonation. Meanwhile here is a timelapse that immortalizes this mysterious flash (@ 0:28) from Sartene:


Fireball

NASA all-sky camera captures 305 fireballs!

Every night, a network of NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics.

On Sep. 3, 2014, the network reported 305 fireballs.
(300 sporadics, 3 , 1 alpha Aurigid, 1 Southern delta Aquariid)

Fireball 3

Witnesses see meteor light up Colorado skies

Meteor
© Wikimedia Commons
It might have been the size of a pea, or maybe as big as a football. Still, streaking across the Boulder skies late Tuesday night, it made quite an impression on those who saw it.

Trevor Ycas, who lives in the Martin Acres neighborhood, was lounging in the backyard with four friends around 11 p.m. when they saw what he said was a meteor. They watched, said Ycas, as it split into four distinct pieces.

"It was going south to north, so I think it broke up somewhere north of Loveland, or maybe Greeley. I used a compass to check the trajectory, and I think it was about 15 to 20 degrees east of north," Ycas said.

Several in Ycas's group attempted to film it with camera phones, but were unsuccessful in capturing good images. But the time stamp from those attempts show that it occurred about 10:34 p.m., Ycas said.

There were plenty of other witnesses as well, including some who were out under the stars at Red Rocks Amphitheater for Film on the Rocks. "Meteor so large the crowd at Film on the Rocks was cheering," tweeted one.

Seth Hornstein, director of the Sommers-Bausch Observatory at the University of Colorado and a professor in the Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences, had not heard about the sighting until contacted by the Camera.

"It was probably a lone meteor," said Hornstein. "There's no showers coming up - the Persieds were in August, and the Orionids are the next ones in mid-October. It was probably just a stray."