Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 3

Bright fireball flares up over Florida, 17 February 2013

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© LunarMeteorite*Hunter / Google EarthFlorida Meteor 17 FEB 2013
17 February 2013 - Alexander Valdes, Miramar, Florida @ 19:20 EST
About 3-4 seconds duration. I was facing east on Miramar PKWY at traffic light on Flamingo. A bluish and then bright green colour. No sound. I was inside my car. It was very bright, similar to a firework display. I did not see any fragmentation. It fizzled out before I could take a picture.
17 February 2013 - Karina Harfouche, Boca Raton, Florida @ 18:55 EST
5 seconds duration. Left to right, I was facing north. It looked like a ball on fire, about half the size of the moon. It was as bright as the sun, a very bright yellow/orange colour. I was driving from Miami to Boca Raton and saw this fireball going straight down towards the east. After 5 seconds it lit-off and disappeared.
17 February 2013 - Jank Foster, Palm Harbor, Florida @ 7:20pm
4 seconds duration. North to south direction. It was a bright yellow fireball.

Comment: There have been at least 15 significant fireball events so far in February 2013...


Meteor

Flashback NASA sez: Asteroid 2012 DA14 - strike in 2013 is overhyped

Despite feverish speculation from doomsayers, the near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 won't slam into our planet next year, NASA researchers say.

The asteroid, which astronomers estimate to be about 150 feet (45 meters) across, will give Earth an uncomfortably close shave on Feb. 15, 2013, coming nearer to our planet than the satellites we've lofted to geostationary orbit. But 2012 DA14 poses no real impact danger on that pass, according to NASA scientists.
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© NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program OfficeIn this oblique view, the path of near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 is seen passing close to Earth on Feb. 15, 2013.
"Its orbit about the sun can bring it no closer to the Earth's surface than 3.2 Earth radii on February 15, 2013," researchers with the Near-Earth Object Program Office, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., wrote in an update on March 6.

One Earth radius is roughly 3,963 miles (6,378 kilometers) at the equator. So by this reckoning, the nearest 2012 DA14 can get to us next year is 12,680 miles (20,406 km).

Fireball 3

'Meteor shower' lights up night sky across Florida: Coast Guard

South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show - possibly a meteor shower.

The Coast Guard began getting flooded with phone calls about 7:30 p.m., with reports of folks seeing flare-like objects from Jacksonville to Key West, according to Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Laberdesque. People called in, describing the flares "as orange or red fireballs in the sky," Laberdesque said.

The display was limited to the sky: No injuries were reported, Laberdesque said.

The Coast Guard found that the flares were disappearing in an instant. The Coast Guard sent out a helicopter to check out a report of a flare near the MacArthur Causeway, but found nothing there, Laberdesque said.

Fireball 3

Russian meteor blast 'heard' around the world

Russian Meteor
© isoundhunterThe Russian meteor blast send infrasound, or low-frequency sound waves, through the atmosphere.
The shock wave from Friday's (Feb. 15) meteor explosion above Russia sent subsonic waves through the atmosphere halfway around the world.

Up to 11 sensors in Greenland, Africa, Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and other far-flung regions detected the Russian meteor blast's infrasound, or low-frequency sound waves. The sensors are part of the global network of 60 infrasound stations maintained by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

Infrasound's long wavelengths (about 20 to 0.01 Hertz) can travel far distances in the atmosphere, at frequencies humans can't hear. Elephants, whales and even pigeons use infrasound for communication and navigation, scientists have discovered.

The CTBTO relies on Infrasound arrays to help determine the location and size of atmospheric explosions. Man-made explosions, such as bombs, produce a different infrasound pattern than natural fireballs like shattering meteors.

Fireball

What we know about the Russian meteor event on Feb 15, 2013

We have the technology to provide warning about these potential disasters

What we know (subject to change as more information comes in): At 9:20 a.m. local time in Russia, videos show an impactor coming in from the North. Asteroid 2012 DA14 is approaching Earth from the South. These two events are not related. The body is estimated to have been 15 meters across and weighed roughly 8 tons 8000 tons. The resulting airburst would have the equivalent yield of a 1-10 megaton 500 kiloton explosion. Note that these are very rough and extremely preliminary estimates.


Comment: The problem isn't a lack of technology; the problem is that our leaders have chosen to ignore the problem.

From Letters From The Edge:
Awareness of the possibility of large impact events on Earth, although long present among a handful of the most imaginative thinkers, has come of age in this century as a result of studies of Arizona's Meteor Crater and the Tunguska fireball of June 30, 1908, in Siberia, spacecraft observations of cratering on Earth and other rocky bodies, and astronomical surveys of the near-Earth asteroid and comet populations. Appreciation of the effects of large impacts has developed in response to these studies and to the unclassified literature on the effects of large nuclear weapons. [...]

The most intensively studied impact phenomenon, impact cratering, is of limited importance, due to the rarity and large mean time between events for crater-forming impacts. Almost all events causing property damage and lethality are due to bodies less than 100 meters in diameter, almost all of which, except for the very largest and strongest, are fated to explode in the atmosphere. ... Since explosions greater than 1 gigaton TNT are rare on this short of a time scale, we are forced to conclude that the complex behavior of smaller bodies is closely relevant to the threat actually experienced by contemporary civilization. [...]

The large majority of lethal events (not of the number of fatalities) are caused by bodies that are so small, so faint, and so numerous that the cost of the effort required to find, track, predict, and intercept them exceeds the cost of the damage incurred by ignoring them.

(John S. Lewis, Professor of Planetary Sciences at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Co-director of the NASA/University of Arizona Space Engineering Research Center, and Commissioner of the Arizona State Space Commission in: Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards on a Populated Earth, 2000; Academic Press)



Meteor

Flashback Best of the Web: Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified


Comment: Editorial note, 17 February 2013: The following article and SOTT editorial comment (below) was first published in 2009.


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For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere - but no longer. A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com had learned.

The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists.

The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.

Comment: Anyone who has been closely following the geopolitical situation over the last decade would not be in the least surprised or baffled at why this information is now being withheld from the public. Objects in the heavens will be playing a greater and greater role in events down here on the Big Blue Marble over the next few years, if our hypotheses here at SOTT are close to correct.

The masters of our world want more "hype and fear of the unknown". World events are orchestrated for just that effect.

Too bad these scientists aren't reading SOTT!


Fireball 3

Confirmed: Fireball exploded over Cuba last week - Shock wave shook buildings, caused panic

Cuba apparently experienced a phenomenon similar to the meteorite that detonated over Russia this week, island media reported, with startled residents describing a bright light in the sky and a loud explosion that shook windows and walls.

There were no reports of any injuries or damage such as those caused by the Russia meteorite, which sent out shockwaves that hurt some 1,200 people and shattered countless windows.

In a video from a state TV newscast posted on the website CubaSi late Friday, unidentified residents of the central city of Rodas, near Cienfuegos, said the explosion was impressive.

"On Tuesday we left home to fish around five in the afternoon, and around 8:00 we saw a light in the heavens and then a big ball of fire, bigger than the sun," one local man said in the video.

"My home shook completely," said a woman. "I had never heard such a strange thing."


Comment: Yes, they're so rare that on the same day two of them can hit opposite sides of the globe while a third one performs 'the closet fly-by ever' of such an object...

Sarcasm aside, it's clear that authorities around the world have no clue what they are dealing with here.


Fireball 4

Russian meteor blast bigger and more powerful than thought, NASA says

The meteor that exploded over Russia Friday was slightly larger than previously thought and more powerful, too, NASA scientists say. The Russian meteor explosion over the city of Chelyabinsk, on Friday (Feb. 15), injured more than 1,000 people and blew out windows across the region in a massive blast captured on cameras by frightened witnesses. Friday afternoon, NASA scientists estimated the meteor was space rock about 50 feet (15 meters) and sparked a blast equivalent of a 300-kiloton explosion. The energy estimate was later increased to 470 kilotons.
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But late Friday, NASA revised its estimates on the size and power of the devastating meteor explosion. The meteor's size is now thought to be slightly larger - about 55 feet (17 m) wide - with the power of the blast estimate of about 500 kilotons, 30 kilotons higher than before, NASA officials said in a statement. [See video of the intense meteor explosion]

The meteor was also substantially more massive than thought as well. Initial estimated pegged the space rock's mass at about 7,000 tons. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., now say the meteor weighed about 10,000 tons and was travelling 40,000 mph (64,373 km/h) when it exploded.

"These new estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world - the first recording of the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away from Chelyabinsk," JPL officials explained in the statement. The infrasound stations detect low-frequency sound waves that accompany exploding meteors, known as bolides.

Fireball 2

Fireball explodes over Bay Area, California, 15 February 2013 - Fifth bright fireball seen in Northern California in past five months

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© lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
15 February 2013 - David Reis, Redwood City, CA @ 19:45 PST
2 seconds duration. E-W direction. Bright white color, as bright as the sun. No fragmentation and it had a very short tail.
15 February 2013 - Christine Grau, Roseville, CA @ 19:44 PST
2-3 seconds duration. E-W direction. Green and orange tail. Very bright, it was vibrant and huge.
15 February 2013 - Alex, Santa Rosa, CA @ 7:43 PST
1.5 seconds duration. Southwest direction. White color. Brighter than the moon. Pulling into my driveway, I witnessed this bright white fireball in the southwestern sky. It had minor breakup and was a quick streak that started small and grew in size before it extinguished.

Comment: Fireball lights up early morning sky from Nevada to California, 17 January 2013

Bright fireball wows Californians, 27 December 2012

Fireball "bright as the moon" seen across California and Nevada, 24 November 2012

Fragmentation and Sonics! Northern California Fireball Meteor +19'42 PDT 17OCT2012 - Unrelated to the Orionids


Fireball 5

Huge fireball over Japan on Valentine's Day


Source: SonotaCo.JP