Fire in the SkyS


Question

Unexplained explosions heard in Croy Canyon: Mountain Home Air Force Base denies responsibility

Tony Evans
Idaho Mountain Express
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:01 UTC
(Idaho, USA) Blaine County sheriff's deputies responded to reports of loud booming noises in western Hailey last week, but could not find the source of the sounds.

Speculations about the source of the sounds, which were heard across the city and to the west, range from supersonic aircraft to explosive targets.

Sheriff's Lt. Jay Davis said that following reports of the sounds, deputies drove on Friday, March 2, into Croy Canyon and heard them also, but could not find their source.

"We have some suspicions," Davis said, including explosive targets, but he said the investigation is ongoing.

Tannerite is the trademark name for an ammonium nitrate/aluminum powder-based binary explosive used in target practice.
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Meteor

Fireball Spotted Over North Georgia


11Live.com
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:47 UTC

Cartersville - Scientists at the Tellus Science Museum said they observed a fireball in the sky over north Georgia Wednesday evening.

The NASA Meteoroid Environment Office confirmed that a bright fireball streaked across the skies over parts of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia at 10:19 p.m. Wednesday. The fireball was captured by cameras at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, as well as by cameras in Tullahoma, Tenn., and at the Tellus Science Museum.

NASA says the meteor was first recorded at an altitude of 51.5 miles, just southeast of Tunnel Hill, Ga., moving to the west-southwest at about 33,500 mph. The fireball was last spotted near Rock Spring, Ga., along Ga. Highway 95.
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Meteor

Unexplained "Phoenix Lights" explosion caught live on news broadcast

Eric Pfeiffer
Yahoo News
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:17 UTC

Phoenix's FOX 10 reporter Andrea Robinson was in the middle of an on-air report when an unexplained, bright white explosion appeared in the distance behind her.

The strange blast was caught on tape and aired live during Robinson's report. At first, news station employees thought the explosion was a transformer. But when FOX 10 checked with local utility providers APS and Salt River Project, they were told no transformers had blown in the area.

While the source of the explosion remains a mystery, it comes just before the 15th anniversary of one of the most-famous UFO sightings in recent history. On March 13, 1997, a cluster of glowing orbs moving in a V-shaped formation was spotted in the skies above Phoenix. That incident was also caught on film. The origin of the light formation has since been endlessly analyzed and debated.
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Sun

Geomagnetic Storm From Sunspot AR1429 Weaker Than Expected - Beautiful Auroras!


Space Weather
Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:53 UTC
A widely-reported CME produced by an X5-flare from sunspot AR1429 hit our planet's magnetic field on March 8th. The impact was weaker than expected, producing only a mild geomagnetic storm. Power grids and other sun-sensitive technologies were unaffected.

Update: As March 9th unfolds, conditions in the wake of the CME are becoming favorable for stronger geomagnetic storming. These auroras appeared over Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland:

Aurora Borealis
© Jónína ÓskarsdóttirImage Taken: Mar. 8, 2012
Location: Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland.
"No words can describe the experience of the Northern Lights show tonight," says photographer Jónína Óskarsdóttir. "This is just a 1s exposure!"

High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras as Earth's magnetic field continues to reverberate from the CME impact.
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Meteor

Best of the Web: Elenin and the Mystery of Exploding Comets

David Talbott
You Tube
Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:54 UTC
Electric universe proponent David Talbott takes up the Comet Elenin question from a vantage point generally ignored by both the scientific mainstream and the Internet popularizers of Doomsday speculations. What is the relationship of Elenin's catastrophic demise to the larger, unsolved mystery of explosive comet disintegration? 
For a first look at the larger context, see "Seeking the Third Story"



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Meteor

Sightings of meteor reported across the UK


The Independent
Sun, 04 Mar 2012 06:37 UTC
Police forces across the UK have received numerous calls after a large fireball, thought to be a meteor, was spotted in the sky.

Reports of a "bright light" and an "orange glow" were received by police across Scotland and the north of England around 9.40pm yesterday.

The Met Office tweeted: "Hi All, for anyone seeing something in the night sky, we believe it was a meteorite."

The Kielder Observatory also reported the sighting of a "huge fireball" travelling from north to south over Northumberland at 9.41pm.

The Observatory posted on Twitter: "Of 30 years observing the sky £fireball best thing I have ever seen period."

Meteors are particles from space that burn up in a streak of light as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, whereas meteorites are larger objects that survive the trip and reach the surface of the Earth.
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Meteor

New Comet 257P/SOHO (2012)

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:33 UTC
Profile

Discovery Date: January 13, 2012
Magnitude: 6 mag
Discoverer: Alan Watson (STEREO-B spacecraft)

Magnitude Graph for 257P/SOHO
© Aerith Net
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2012-E18.
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Sun

Sun Fires Off 2 Huge Solar Flares in One-Two Punch


SPACE.com
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:22 UTC
Image
© NASA/SDOThis image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun as it unleashed an X5.4-class solar flare at 7:04 p.m. EST on March 6, 2012 (0002 March 7 GMT). The flare appears as the bright spot in the upper left.
The sun unleashed a cosmic double whammy Tuesday (March 6), erupting with two major flares to cap a busy day of powerful solar storms. One of the flares is the most powerful solar eruption of the year, so far.

Both of the huge flares ranked as X-class storms, the strongest type of solar flares the sun can have. They followed several weaker, but still powerful, sun storms on Tuesday and came just days after another major solar flare on Sunday night.

The first big solar storm was also the most powerful one, ranking as an X5.4-class flare after erupting at 7:02 p.m. EST (0002 March 7 GMT), according to an alert from the Space Weather Prediction Center operated by the National Weather Service. It is the strongest solar flare yet for 2012.

The second event occurred just over an hour later, reaching a maximum strength of X1.3.
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Meteor

New Comet C/2012 BJ98

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:48 UTC
Profile

Discovery Date: January 26 and March 1, 2012
Magnitude: 19.2 mag, 19.1 mag
Discoverer: Rik Hill (Mount Lemmon Survey), Alex R. Gibbs and Eric J. Christensen (Mount Lemmon Survey)

Magnitude Graph for BJ98
© Aerith Net
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2012-E18.
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Meteor

New Comet C/2012 E1 (Hill)

Seiichi Yoshida
Aerith Net
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:15 UTC
Profile

Discovery Date: March 2, 2012
Magnitude: 19.6 mag
Discoverer: R. E. Hill (Mount Lemmon)

Magnitude Graph
© Aerith Net
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2012-E39.
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