Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 4

Big boom, bright streak of light across the sky over Pacific Northwest was a meteor

Christine Clarridge
The Seattle Times
Mon, 04 Nov 2019 15:32 UTC
Meteor fireball (stock)
© Ikonacolor/Getty Images (file photo)
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a meteor!

Observant stargazers in the Pacific Northwest noticed something streak across the night sky late Sunday night, with a long, blue-green tail and an accompanying booming sound.

Posts in Reddit forums started popping up: "I saw what looked like a strange firework ..."Did anyone else see a shooting star tonight?" "What was that huge explosion sound north Seattle????"

The awe wasn't confined to the Seattle area. A Reddit user in Vancouver, B.C., reported seeing "a relatively large streak of light cut diagonally across the sky tonight around 11:30 p.m. We're in the Dunbar and 16th area and saw it in a north-northwest direction, about 30 degrees up. I thought it was just white, my girlfriend said it was rainbow coloured. Are there any meteor showers or something tonight? It lasted about three-quarters of a second, and sort of faded quickly."


Comment: The East Oregonian reports the boom shook windows, doors and rattled walls in northeast Oregon:
"It was a loud boom that lasted a long time and rattled the walls," said Crystal McKee, who lives near the center of town.

"It sounded like they were lighting off dynamite in the park," said Jason Martinez. He lives across the street from Athena City Park, which sits at the southern edge of town.

The noise shook both from deep sleep.
...

One person initially thought a car had crashed into her house. Others said the concussion shook windows and doors. Someone from Weston heard it too — and another on Weston Mountain. One speculated about a massive crater nearby.


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Comet 2

ANOTHER one! Chelyabinsk-sized asteroid skims Earth, third close fly-by in 5 days


RT
Mon, 04 Nov 2019 12:24 UTC
asteroid
© urikyo33
A 65-foot asteroid is set to shoot past the Earth at 26,843mph in a close flyby altitude of just 107,850 miles. Worryingly, NASA's space rock hunters only spotted the asteroid about a week ago.

Asteroid 2019 VD was first picked up by NASA asteroid trackers on October 25, meaning they had little time to crunch the numbers and assess the threat level.

The space rock is roughly the same size as the infamous Chelyabinsk meteor which exploded in the skies above Russia, causing widespread damage to 7,200 buildings and injuring over 1,000 people.

Comment: There was another one yesterday, and another (the 'closest ever') on Halloween.

These 'newly discovered' asteroids have been buzzing us at an alarming rate of late: According to astronomers Clube and Napier:
"...there is a great swarm of cosmic debris circulating in a potentially dangerous orbit, exactly intersecting the Earth's orbit in June (and November) every few thousand years. More surprisingly, perhaps, it has been found that the evidence for these facts was in the past deliberately concealed.

When the orbits exactly intersect, however, there is a greatly increased chance of penetrating the core of the swarm, a correspondingly enhanced flow of fireballs reaching the Earth, and a greatly raised perception that the end of the world is nigh. This perception is liable to arise at other times as well, whenever fresh debris is formed, but deep penetrations occurred during the fourth millennium BC, again during the first millennium BC, taking in at their close the time of Christ, and will likely take place yet again during the millennium to come."


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Meteor

Loud house-shaking boom rattles residents in Wichita, Kansas


KAKE
Sat, 02 Nov 2019 17:54 UTC
Fireball - stock image
Stock image
A series of loud booms shook south Wichita Saturday afternoon, leaving thousands of people as far away as Haysville and Marion County wondering what caused them.

Beginning around 1:40 p.m., Sedgwick County emergency dispatchers fielded many calls about "possible explosions."

A spokesperson from the National Earthquake Information Center says that their recording equipment has not shown evidence of an earthquake. We have reached out to McConnell Air Force Base but so far have not received an answer.

Ruby Welch posted via Facebook that the boom "shook her house" and thought that "something blew up in (her) neighborhood."

Some people have speculated that it was a meteor. Others think it may have been a sonic boom. Others thought they had seen strange objects in the sky, but that has not been confirmed.

Comment: On November 2nd, the American Meteor Society received 36 reports of a meteor over Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

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Fireball 2

Doorbell camera captures 'huge' meteor fireball over Southern California


MSN
Sat, 02 Nov 2019 17:21 UTC
Fireball over SoCal
© MSN/Jessica Gilstrap
Home security cameras captured the moment a meteor streaked across the night sky over Fullerton, California, in the early hours of November 2.

Jessica Gilstrap tweeted this video recorded by her doorbell camera, writing: "WHOA! Jared and I were laying in bed and a bright light shone in our room, I thought someone was outside with a flashlight. It was a HUGE meteor! Our doorbell cam caught it. So cool."

Comment: Additional footage of the bolide was uploaded to the American Meteor Society by Steve R.:



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Fireball 5

Yet another asteroid just skimmed Earth - ONE day after it was discovered

Alexandra Lozovschi
The Inquisitr
Sun, 03 Nov 2019 02:52 UTC
Asteroid approaching Earth
© urikyo33 / Pixabay
Earlier today, planet Earth was buzzed by a tiny asteroid that ventured incredibly close to the planet's surface, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have announced. Cruising through space at speeds of a little over 19,300 mph, the minuscule space rock passed closer than the moon, creeping in within just 65,100 miles of Earth.

To put that into perspective, the moon sits at an average distance of 238,900 miles from Earth. This means that during today's extremely close flyby of Earth, the tiny rock flew at just 0.28 times the distance to the moon.


Comment: Notice how, two paragraphs in, this report has already described the asteroid as "tiny" twice, and "miniscule". They haven't even reported what size range or estimate astronomers have given it, yet they're already opining on with their baseless threat assessment. This is typical of space weather reporting, which is generally abominable.


The wayfaring space rock approached Earth in the early hours of the afternoon, reaching its closest point to Earth at 1:28 p.m. ET. Several hours before its extremely close encounter with Earth, the asteroid swung by the moon, passing within 167,400 miles from its cratered surface.

Today's near-miss was one of the closest asteroid encounters of the entire year. While Earth has seen quite an impressive number of close asteroid approaches over the past few months, very few rocks have wandered this close to the planet's surface.

Among the recent asteroids flybys that have sent fast-zipping space rocks flying closer than the moon in the last couple of months, the most noteworthy is a 33-foot asteroid that scraped past Earth at 0.48 times the lunar distance in early September. More recently, a larger 91-foot asteroid skimmed Earth from halfway the distance to the moon on October 31.


Comment: Eh, no, it wasn't "halfway the distance to the Moon." If they're referring to Asteroid C0PPEV1, which skimmed Earth on Halloween, it was way closer than that. As in, it pretty much entered then re-exited the upper atmosphere...

Halloween surprise! Asteroid narrowly missed Earth yesterday - Discovered as it flew by - Closest on record


Comment: It better not be given that it closed the distance from over a million miles to just 65,000 miles in the space of 6 years...

These 'newly discovered' space rocks are buzzing by at an alarming frequency: A perfect occasion to read or re-read Witches, Comets and Planetary Cataclysms

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Fireball

Meteor fireball streaks over northeast Ontario

Sergio Arangio
CTV News
Thu, 31 Oct 2019 18:59 UTC
Fireball - stock image
Stock image
People across northeastern Ontario are still talking about seeing a fireball falling through the sky during the evening hours on October 29.

It happened around 6:30 p.m. and social media lit like the fireball people reported seeing streaking across the horizon.

Rachel Hamelin says she saw the spectacle on her way home from work, and says she was awestruck.

"We've always watched the meteor showers in August at the cottage, so you can see all of the white streaks just all over the sky... but this was completely different because it was red and bright. It was a massive fireball. To see something like that, you see videos of it, but to actually see it with your own eyes... videos don't do it justice," says Hamlin.

Some speculated that it was a piece of a satellite, or even aliens, but an astronomy professor says it's a common phenomenon, albeit rare to see in person.
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Fireball 4

Best of the Web: Halloween surprise! Asteroid narrowly missed Earth yesterday - Discovered as it flew by - Closest on record

Eric Mack
CNET
Thu, 31 Oct 2019 17:14 UTC

Comment: Week after week, 'newly-discovered' asteroid after 'newly-discovered' asteroid, closer and closer...


Asteroid approaching Earth C0PPEV1
According to data from these early observations, the asteroid came closer to the surface of our planet (without actually colliding with our atmosphere) than any other close approach in NASA's database of known near-Earth objects.
Even space rocks are supplying jump scares on Halloween, just like your favorite horror flick.

A near-Earth asteroid currently identified as C0PPEV1 was spotted in the early morning hours Thursday by the Catalina Sky Survey, based in Arizona, and shortly thereafter by New Mexico's Magdalena Ridge Observatory and Arizona's Mt. Lemmon Steward Observatory.


Comment: Just to be clear (because the author isn't): it was only FIRST DISCOVERED at this point.


According to data from these early observations, the asteroid came closer to the surface of our planet (without actually colliding with our atmosphere) than any other close approach in NASA's database of known near-Earth objects.

Simulations show the asteroid passing above southern Africa within 3,852 miles (6,200 km) at the moment of closest approach, around 7:45 a.m. PT. To get an idea of how close this is, consider that many telecommunications satellites orbit at an altitude of 22,236 miles (35,786 km).

Comment: No, we were NOT getting pinged like this before.

In just the last couple of decades, there has been a steady increase in:
  • the number of 'new moons' acquired by the solar system's planets
  • impacts on bodies such as our Moon and Jupiter
  • meteor fireball events in our atmosphere
  • the number of asteroids/comets circulating the inner solar system
That is NOT all just 'thanks to better detection'. Standards are slipping in every other field, so there's no reason to suppose they're excelling in the other direction in just this one field...

These 'newly discovered' space rocks are buzzing by at an alarming frequency: A perfect occasion to read or re-read Witches, Comets and Planetary Cataclysms

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Fireball 4

Large green meteor fireball widely observed flying over Ireland

Cormac Byrne
Irish Mirror
Mon, 28 Oct 2019 21:00 UTC
Green meteor fireball over Ireland
Sean Linehan was driving near Banteer, Co Cork when he recorded amazing footage of the meteor on his dashcam.
An Irish driver has captured stunning footage of a low-flying meteor over Co Cork.

Sean Linehan was driving near Banteer, Co Cork at around 7pm on Monday night when we recorded amazing footage of the green meteor on his dashcam.

Sean uploaded the clip to his Twitter account shortly after, tweeting: "Just caught this on my dashcam outside Banteer, Cork.

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Meteor

Grimsby, England residents report late-night 'deafening bang'

Connor Lynch
Grimsby Telegraph
Mon, 28 Oct 2019 14:30 UTC
Loud boom in Grimsby, England
© Abby Ruston
Did you hear the "deafening bang" that awoke residents last night?

A number of Scartho residents took to social media last night to try and find out the cause of a loud bang that was heard across the area. People say that they are convinced that it was not a firework, and were worried that it may have been an explosion.

The noise was was heard at around 11pm last night, and there have been a number of theories about what may have caused it, ranging from a sonic boom to neighbours putting their bins out too loudly - although as it was heard from as far away as Waltham and Killingholme, the latter is unlikely.

One Scartho resident took to social media to say: "Did anyone just hear a loud bang? Was not a firework, sounded like some sort of explosion".

Another resident, who claimed to have bad hearing said: "I heard it up Scartho top, it was extremely loud and I'm deaf!"
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Telescope

Incoming! Five asteroids flew past Earth Friday - one twice as big as Empire State Building

Charlotte Edwards
The Scottish Sun
Fri, 25 Oct 2019 11:23 UTC
asteroid
Five asteroids will skim past Earth today and one of them is bigger than the tallest building in the world.

Asteroid 1998 HL1 is so big that some astronomers think it will be possible to see from Earth.

The Virtual Telescope Project will be live streaming the colossal asteroid's flypast, which you'll be able to watch on YouTube from 6pm BST.

Astronomer Gian Masi wrote under the video: "The Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 will have a close, but safe, encounter with us, coming at about 6.2 millions of km from the Earth.

"The Virtual Telescope Project will show it to you live, online: join from your home!"

Asteroid 1998 HL1 is estimated to have a diameter of up to 3248 feet, making it taller than the Burj Khalifa.

Comment: It's getting crowded up there!



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