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Meteor

Best of the Web: Fireball falls from the sky and torches field near Bjelovar, Croatia

A frightened ambulance driver saw it first: "a fireball fell from the sky and lit up the woods near Bjelovar!" 'Driving a patient at night I noticed a fiery flame in the sky. Falling into a valley in the countryside '

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Bjelovar - A comet fell from the sky and set fire to the woods near Bjelovar! On Saturday evening there were also media reports of a fire in a field near the center of Bulinca. The alarm was raised by callers dialing emergency number 112.

A man said he was driving the car, saw the comet with a flaming tail that fell from the sky into an area of vegetation. According to information from the Bjelovar Fire Department, a fire broke out in between the towns of Bulinac with Bjelovar.

"I was exiting Patkovca on the left side of the road and noticed a fiery flame in the sky. Since we are in a valley and it was dusk, we could see very well. It was within walking distance of two to three kilometers from me and at first I thought it was a plane crash. I watched the fiery ball until it fell to the ground. It all lasted about ten seconds. A dozen sci-fi scenarios passed through my head and I could not believe what I saw. A few miles away, at the entrance to Bulinac, I saw a big fire near the forest on a nearby area of grass. About this I immediately informed the Emergency Center 112. Unfortunately, I did not had time to stop and see what it was because I was in an ambulance transporting patients," said Daruvarcanin Darko Hresic, an ambulance driver.

When they put out the fire, members of the DVD searched the area looking for a crater or something that would point to a deliberate arson. Nothing was found. The news of the event very quickly spread throughout Bulincem. According to information from the Bjelovar Police, so far the only eyewitness is Hresic.

Sun

Best of the Web: Major Solar Activity! Did the Sun just shoot an enormous ball of fire?

This is a view of the sun on February 1st from behind COR 2 - it's the most incredible thing I have ever seen! The sun shoots out a fireball that engulfs a planet-sized object! Could this be what they didn't want everyone to see so they manufactured the record breaking snow storm?


Link to see Ahead COR 2 video in the same time frame.

Comment: Alternatively, could this be what manufactured the the record-breaking snow storm?

The image is fascinating, but the commentary on this video is rather uninformed, to be as polite as possible.


Eye 1

Best of the Web: Bush ducks Swiss trip over torture complaint

pardon our torture
© Unknown

Geneva- Former U.S. President George W. Bush, under fire from human rights group over allegations of ordering torture, has canceled a visit to Switzerland where he was to address a Jewish charity gala.

Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on February 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.

Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say, and several human rights groups signaled that they were poised to take further legal action this week.

Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Pulsating Auroras

During the geomagnetic storm of Feb. 4th, Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway, witnessed an episode of elusive pulsating auroras. "The sky was filled with patches of green that oscillated in brightness," he explains. A snapshot with his Nikon D3 caught the phenomenon in mid-pulse:

Pulsating Auroras
© Fredrik Broms
"The patches didn't move much, but their intensity changed. When one patch got brighter another became more diffuse and so on," Broms describes.

Reports of pulsating auroras go back more than a century, but until recently no one knew what made the aurora borealis behave like a strobe light. Researchers from UCLA solved the puzzle in 2009-10. Using data from NASA's THEMIS spacecraft, they discovered that auroras pulse in sync to 'chorus waves' in Earth's magnetosphere. This is a type of plasma wave that, apparently, can modulate the flow of solar wind particles down to Earth during geomagnetic storms. It sounds cool, too--hence the name 'chorus.'

Eye 1

Best of the Web: Interesting Anomaly at Egyptian Protests: Green Horseman or Reflection From Flames?

The image appears at 1:19.

Footage of rioting in Cairo appears to show a ghost horse and rider. Extended Video with slow motion


Comment: Whether this is a reflection of the fire on the camera lens or lens flare, it's an astonishing and remarkable phenomenon.


Cloud Lightning

Best of the Web: Chicago Blizzard 2011 - Thunder Snow - Strike!

There was a lightning flash and I almost dropped my camera. Who knew thundersnow existed?


Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Volcanic hell: Japan entering new stage of geological upheaval

shinmoedake
© Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images A plume of smoke rises from the crater of Mount Shinmoedake in the Kirishima mountain range of Kagoshima prefecture, Japan.
Shinmoedake, a volcano on Japan's southern island of Kyushu, erupted again as the government said it will send officials to the area to help local authorities create an evacuation plan.

The 1,421-meter (4,660 feet) volcano in the Kirishima range erupted at 9:42 a.m. local time following three eruptions yesterday, sending a plume of ash and smoke as high as 3,000 meters, a branch division of the agency said in a statement. The plume was drifting east-northeast toward Miyazaki Prefecture's Pacific coastline, the statement said.

The government plans to send a group of natural disaster officials to the area as early as Feb. 7, Shigeo Ochi, an official at the Cabinet Office, said in a telephone interview today. Japan's Meteorological Agency is maintaining a level 3 alert for Shinmoedake, indicating an eruption "may seriously affect places near residential areas." Evacuations are carried out when the alert reaches the maximum 5.

Meteor

Best of the Web: Very close shave! NEO to come within 12,000 km of Earth today, February 4!

The newly discovered object, officially designated 2011 CQ1, will make a close Earth approach today February 04, 2011 around 19:40UT at ~0.03(LD)/0.00008(AU) or 11855 km.

2011 CQ1 has been discovered by R. A. Kowalski few hours ago in the course of the "Catalina Sky Survey" with a 0.68-m Schmidt + CCD. The object was moving at roughly 6 "/min and it was of magnitude ~19. According to its absolute magnitude H=32 this is a very small object, in the order of 2-3 meters.

Just few hours after his discovery, we have been able to follow-up this object using remotely a 0.35-m f/3.8 reflector + CCD of "Tzec Maun Observatory" in New Mexico. At the moment of our images (on February 04.46), "2011 CQ1" was moving at 23"/min and its magnitude was ~18.

Comment: Readers are encouraged to watch this video to understand the seriousness of the asteroid threat.

Asteroid Discovery From 1980 - 2010


Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: World of two halves! Map shows most of Northern Hemisphere is covered in snow and ice

It looks like a graphic from a Discovery Channel programme about a distant ice age. But this astonishing picture shows the world as it is today - with half the Northern Hemisphere covered with snow and ice.

The image was released by the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Association (NOAA) on the day half of North America suffered in the grip of a severe winter storm.

The map was created using multiple satellites from government agencies and the US Air Force.
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© NOAAA new satellite map from the government agency NOAA shows the size of the snow cover on regions going from the West coast of Canada to the East of China.
Stretching from the west coast of Canada to the eastern shores of China, the white stuff has rarely been shown covering this much ground.

Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: What Corruption and Force Have Wrought in Egypt

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© AP/Ben Curtis
The uprising in Egypt, although united around the nearly universal desire to rid the country of the military dictator Hosni Mubarak, also presages the inevitable shift within the Arab world away from secular regimes toward an embrace of Islamic rule. Don't be fooled by the glib sloganeering about democracy or the facile reporting by Western reporters - few of whom speak Arabic or have experience in the region. Egyptians are not Americans. They have their own culture, their own sets of grievances and their own history. And it is not ours. They want, as we do, to have a say in their own governance, but that say will include widespread support - especially among Egypt's poor, who make up more than half the country and live on about two dollars a day - for the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic parties. Any real opening of the political system in the Arab world's most populated nation will see an empowering of these Islamic movements. And any attempt to close the system further - say a replacement of Mubarak with another military dictator - will ensure a deeper radicalization in Egypt and the wider Arab world.

The only way opposition to the U.S.-backed regime of Mubarak could be expressed for the past three decades was through Islamic movements, from the Muslim Brotherhood to more radical Islamic groups, some of which embrace violence. And any replacement of Mubarak (which now seems almost certain) while it may initially be dominated by moderate, secular leaders will, once elections are held and popular will is expressed, have an Islamic coloring. A new government, to maintain credibility with the Egyptian population, will have to more actively defy demands from Washington and be more openly antagonistic to Israel. What is happening in Egypt, like what happened in Tunisia, tightens the noose that will - unless Israel and Washington radically change their policies toward the Palestinians and the Muslim world - threaten to strangle the Jewish state as well as dramatically curtail American influence in the Middle East.