Fire in the SkyS


Question

Croatia: Gardeners Comet Tale

Meteorite
© Europics.at

A Romanian man planting potatoes almost died when a meteorite believed to be from the tale of Halley's Comet thudded into the ground inches from where he was working.

Dumitru Zvanca, 58, said: "I heard a brief whoosh of air and then something hit the ground just to one side of me with an enormous thud. I didn't see a meteor, but I saw the small crater of earth it made and whatever had hit the ground had sunk into the earth.

"I thought there might be more so I ran inside and waited until the next day - then I went out and dug it up."

The gardener from Suharau commune, in Botosani country in northern Romania contacted geologist Sorin Grindei, from Botosani, who said: "It had fallen 50-70 centimetres into the garden. It was like a black round ball, like a pool ball.

Attention

Comet and a CME

A comet dove into the sun on May 11th and seemed to trigger a massive eruption--emphasis on seemed. Watch the movie below, then scroll down for further discussion.



A comet goes in; a CME comes out. Coincidence? Probably, yes, the sequence was coincidental. The comet disintegrated as much as a million kilometers above the stellar surface. There's no known way that the wispy, vaporous remains of a relatively lightweight comet could cause a billion-ton cloud of hot plasma to fly away from the sun at 400 km/s (the observed speed of the CME). Moreover, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the eruption that did propel the CME into space. There's no comet in the field of view of this must-see movie.

Bonus: The bright comet pictured above had a dim companion. Can you find it?

Comment: Unfortunately, Space Weather's commentator does not take into account the idea that there is an electrical discharge phenomena taking place here which can easily explain why the eruption began before the physical arrival of the comet. If a comet in the far reaches of the solar system can induce Solar discharge events - which is part of the Electric Universe theory - then certainly, a discharge event can begin to manifest as the comet approaches.

From our recent review of Planet-X, Comets and Earth Changes by J.M. McCanney, we understand solar discharge events as follows:
Basically, electrons' movement is slightly retarded in the Sun's corona, with solar flares hurling out an excess number of protons. The excess protons in the solar wind creates a separation of charge throughout the entire solar system - a giant capacitor with a positively charged, doughnut-shaped nebular cloud of dust and gases stretching to the far reaches of the solar system, and the negatively charged the surface of the Sun. An electrical potential exists between these two poles and any object moving through plasma regions of varying charge density will become charged, depending on its size and relative velocity. When new bodies (e.g., comets) enter this plasma region from outer space, they ignite and begin to discharge the solar capacitor.
Given the electrical nature of the Sun and comets, there is likely more than just "coincidence" at play here.


Hardhat

US: Officials Believe Meteorite Hit Basking Ridge Lawn

Township officials believe a small meteorite impacted the front lawn of a township home last Friday morning at about 11:35 a.m., creating a trench and spewing dirt and debris on the lawn, driveway and street near the residence.

The residents were not home at the time, members of the Township Committee said when discussing the event at Tuesday night's meeting, although police later said the homeowner was on the property, but heard nothing. No one was injured, Township Mayor John Malay and other officials said.

The address of the home has not been released. However, Township Committeeman John Carpenter said the home is in the southern end of the township.

a trench created on township lawn
© Bernards Township PoliceA trench created on a township lawn believed to have been created by a small meteorite. No One was injured, officials said.

Question

Best of the Web: Virginia, US: 'Unnerving' rumble felt across Hampton Roads remains a mystery

We may only ever know it as The Night the Earth Rattled.

The seconds-long reverberation at approximately 7:20 p.m. Tuesday sent neighbors to porches, piqued slumbering pets and launched a thousand theories. But nobody can say for sure what it was - not police or seismologists or meteorologists or NASA or Oceana Naval Air Station or the Virginia National Guard.

"No clue," said Scott Mohr, a spokesman for Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.

People reported feeling it from Suffolk to Newport News to the Eastern Shore and beyond. The intensity of the grumble was perhaps greatest in Virginia Beach, where five calls came in to 911 and firefighters set out in search of the source of an explosion.

None was found, said Lori Stiles, communications operations manager for the city. She felt it, too, from her home in Dam Neck, a sensation like that of an approaching storm that caused the house to creak.


View Loud Boom on 05/10/11 in a larger map

Meteor

Virginia, US: Meteor Likely Caused Mysterious Boom

Virginia Beach is a city full of sound. Waves crash at the Oceanfront and fighter jets scream overhead. However, a boom Tuesday night caught hundreds of normally unfazed residents from Virginia Beach to the Eastern Shore completely off-guard.

"It shook my house," said one man.

"It almost felt like an earthquake and then I had to think about it. We're in Virginia Beach we don't get earthquakes," said Pam Trotter.

10 On Your Side called the military, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Energy. Turns out the answer may be found out of this world.

"It's most consistent with a meteor coming into the Earth's atmosphere and creating a large sonic boom," said NASA scientist Dr. Joe Zawodny.

Dr. Zawodny said sonic booms are not uncommon. Two years ago, hundreds of people across the region heard a similar boom most likely caused by a meteor.

Meteor

Fireball or UFO photographed in Scotland?

A picture of a UFO was taken yesterday by a photographer in Melrose, Scotland. The photographer, who asked to remain anonymous, supplied the UFO photo to the Border Telegraph. He described the object in the picture as "moving pretty fast at around 45 degrees towards the sky - as you can see by the close up it appears to have a tail showing the direction." The Border Telegraph contacted both the Met Office (the UK's national weather service) and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to see if either group could shed any light on the UFO in question. The Met Office had no record of a weather balloon in the area, and the MOD declined to comment.

Image
© Border TelegraphUFO in Scotland. Zoomed image in lower left.
Fireball UFOs certainly aren't a new phenomenon, and they have been seen all around the world. While meteorites and other debris entering Earth's atmosphere can account for some of the observed fireball objects, some of these UFOs reportedly display unusual behavior like directional changes, shape-shifting, and color changes.

The cameraman who photographed the fireball in Scotland doesn't know what he saw, but he told the Border Telegraph, "It was probably nothing, but I still don't understand what could explain something like that in the sky."

Telescope

Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are aligning at dawn May 11th

No coffee? No problem. To wake up any morning this week, all you need to do is look out the window. Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are aligning in the eastern sky for a spectacular dawn conjunction. Mariano Ribas photographed the gathering on May 9th from his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina:

Image
© Mariano Ribas
"It was an awesome morning with an unforgettable view: four planets packed in just a 7º piece of sky," says Ribas. "The very compact Venus-Mercury-Jupiter triangle was simply hypnotic. And Mars, below them, was faint but still clearly visible to naked eye. Marvelous planetary gathering, but the best is yet to come."

Indeed, on May 11th, Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets in the Solar System, will converge to form a pair less than 1/2 degree apart. Set your alarm for Wednesday morning and begin the day with an eye-opener--no caffeine required.

Meteor

X Crater: First Class

When an asteroid or comet impacts a planet, the explosion ejects huge amounts of material, sending it flying in all directions. But there are also plumes of material, long fingers of rock and dust that stream out as well. The boulders and such inside this plume then fall back to the ground, making liner chains of secondary craters. We see lots of these on our Moon, moons in the outer solar system, and Mercury, too.

If these features are long enough, it's inevitable two chains from two different primary craters would cross somewhere. And it turns out this has been seen... but where?

Well, X marks the spot!

Image
© NASA/MESSENGER
This MESSENGER image of Mercury shows exactly that: two crater chains from two separate impacts crossing over each other (and a third, shorter chain is at the bottom, too). They're almost exactly perpendicular to each other, which is cool, and the intersection happens to lie in a big, shallow crater about 120 km (72 miles) across that fills this image. Unfortunately, MESSENGER hasn't been orbiting Mercury long enough to have surveyed the whole planet yet, so I wasn't able to find the source craters of these two chains.

Telescope

Comets gases may have led to Titan's atmosphere

Image
© UnknownSaturn's Moon Titan
A study has suggested that comets blasting gases out of its icy crust could have created the unique atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.

Several theories have come up earlier behind the origin of Titans nitrogen-rich air. Titan is the only moon in the solar system with much atmosphere.

Some theories suggest that volcanic activity might have belched it out, or sunlight may have broken up a primordial atmosphere's ammonia molecules. But these suggestions assume that the young Titan was a warm world, whereas measurements by the Cassini spacecraft imply that Titan has always been fairly cold.

The latest idea is that the atmosphere was created 3.9 billion years ago in a period known as the late heavy bombardment, when comets swarmed through the solar system.

"Huge amounts of cometary bodies would have collided with outer icy satellites, including Titan," New Scientist quoted Yasuhito Sekine of the University of Tokyo, Japan, as saying.

To mimic the effects of such high-speed impacts, Sekine and his colleagues fired projectiles into a mixture of ammonia and water ice similar to Titan's crust.

The impacts converted some of the ammonia into nitrogen gas, and Sekine's team calculated that ancient comet impacts could have liberated enough nitrogen to build Titan's atmosphere.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Meteor

U.S.: May 7, 2011- Georgia Visited by Another Bright Meteor!

boldie
© Steve E. Farmer Jr.Georgia Fireball Bolide

Once again, on May 7, 2011, Georgia's night skies are lit up by a bright meteor - also known as a Bolide or Fireball.

On the night of Monday May 2, 2011, sightings of a bright meteor appearing over Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and other states were reported to news stations and meteor reporting organizations. According to the reports, around 10:00 PM EST a very bright meteor made its appearance high in Earth's atmosphere and produced quite a light show for those fortunate enough to witness the event. Five day's later; Georgia was once again visited again by another bright Bolide. This time it was captured on video.

Video of the actual event can be found at the following link: May 7, 2011 Bolide Over Georgia.