For the first time ever, a meteor has grazed in and out of Earth's atmosphere, slowing enough to become a temporary satellite that lasted a full orbit.
© Damien Stenson PhotographyLucky skygazer Damien Stenson was photographing O'Briens Tower at Ireland's Cliffs of Moher when a brilliant, fragmenting bolide passed behind. Stenson used LEDs to illuminate the tower in this 30-second exposure. Click on the image for a larger version.
By evening on September 21st, an earlier storm had moved eastward and left skies over the British Isles beautifully clear.
Martin Goff, an officer with the Greater Manchester [England] Police, was making his rounds when he spotted a dazzling meteor at 22:55 p.m. (21:55 Universal Time). "I immediately pulled the van over to better see the fireball," he recounts. "Although not an experienced astronomical observer I was able to log relevant information such as altitude and azimuth relative to the straight road I was on and to trees and streetlights nearby." He estimates it was about as bright as a full moon and remained visible for 35 to 40 seconds, fragmenting for at least the last half of that. "I was just flabbergasted to have seen it!"
He was hardly alone in his amazement. Friday-night crowds were out and about when the bolide appeared, delighting and amazing untold thousands as it broke into dozens of pieces as it glided east to east across the sky. Dirk Ross, who
tracks bright meteors and meteorite finds worldwide, logged 564 eyewitness reports from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Norway.
A few hours later, Ross received another burst of 126 sightings. But these weren't from Europe - instead, a fireball had appeared over southeastern Canada and the U.S. Northeast. What at first seemed the unlikely arrival of two dramatic bolides in a single night is now known to be something much more historic and scientifically profound.
Comment: "Forest jihad"? They have got to be kidding! This nonsense from the Russians appears to be evidence that they too are in on the cover-up to blame forest fires caused by meteorites on the increasingly useful "al-Qaeda".
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