Fire in the SkyS


Fireball

Comet seen from Honduras to Cayman Islands and Jamaica, 29 July 2013: Fragments into stream of 'intense' exploding fireballs

Tad Stoner
Cay Compass
Wed, 31 Jul 2013 01:55 UTC

A meteorite passed over Cayman's skies Monday night, causing a little alarm and a lot of excitement.

Chris Cook, president of the Astronomical Society, explained that sighting the object, that moved slowly across the sky in a shower of light around 10pm, was unusual, but nothing to be alarmed about.


Comment: Nothing to see here folks, it's just a fragment from some larger body that is apparently on its way to smash up a chemical plant in Florida...

Explosions rock Florida gas plant, force evacuations


Image
"It was a very small asteroid, a fireball travelling from Honduras, across Cayman to Jamaica, a meteor that broke up. It's not unusual for these things to happen, although it is more unusual actually to see it," Mr. Cook said.

While regular meteor showers are commonplace, he said, this event was "absolutely unpredictable", recalling that people started "waking up" to "near-Earth objects" only a couple of years ago when the massive comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter, the scars of which, apparently, remain visible.


Comment: Small correction: comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter a couple of decades ago. Since then, Jupiter has been hit at least 3 more times by similarly-sized objects, our own Moon has been hit, and tens of thousands of fireballs have been reported all over this planet, including the February 2013 Chelyabinsk blast that sent shockwaves around the world (twice), apparently the largest celestial event we've had since the 1908 Tunguska overhead cometary explosion.


Comment: Pretty rare thing?! Somebody isn't doing his job properly...

Check out SOTT.net's 73 pages of archived fireball sightings from the past few years:

Fire in the Sky

Meanwhile, "coming from Honduras and moving northeast" takes this meteor or comet fragment (with train of meteors) over Florida on Monday night, which coincided with the explosions that hit the gas plant in Lake County, Florida.

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Fireball 5

Did a meteor explode over Orange County, California? Residents report tremendous explosion

Joseph Serna
Los Angeles Times
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 12:13 UTC
Meteor
© Wally Pacholka / astropics.comA meteor pierces the night sky in Joshua Tree during a Perseid meteor shower. Residents in Lake Forest's Foothill Ranch community say a loud explosion and a flash of light Tuesday morning were the result of a meteor falling.
Unlike trees, when a meteor falls in the wilderness, everyone can hear it.

And some Orange County residents think that's exactly what they heard when a thunderous boom rattled windows, scared pets and startled homeowners from their sleep early Tuesday morning.

About 12:15 a.m., the Orange County Sheriff's Department received three or four calls from residents in Lake Forest's Foothill Ranch community about a loud explosion and a flash of light. Several South Orange County residents also tweeted about the incident, asking about the source of the blast.

Entire neighborhoods emptied into the streets in the middle of the night, residents said, with some pointing to what looked like a cloudy path overhead as the telltale sign of some galactic visitor.
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Fireball 2

Massive fireball with long tail blazes over New Zealand

Kirsty McMurray
Stuff.co.nz
Sat, 13 Jul 2013 20:05 UTC
Shooting Star
© ReutersA shooting star photographed by an astronaut in space.
The sight of a giant shooting star left a North Taranaki man shaking after his early morning run.

Lance Howarth, a mobile mechanic, was out running around the back roads of Lepperton this morning when he saw the star around 5:45am.

''It was that bloody spectacular I had to stop and watch it.''

He said the star had completely lit up the dark moonless sky and surrounding countryside.

''It was early and still dark and the only reason I noticed it was because all of a sudden I could see where I was going and I thought, 'hang on, it's just got light really quickly' and looked up and there it was.''

He described the shooting star as a massive 'fireball' with a long tail and said it seemed to travel from the north east to south west before disappearing into cloud over the ranges.

''It was just frickin' huge. For a while I thought it might crash into the ranges.''

The star almost passed right above his head, and was completely silent, he said.

''It was the best thing I've ever seen, and the most frightening.''

Stunned, his mind ran to the possibilities of what it could mean.

''I did think for a second, ''are we about to be invaded by aliens?'''

The star also left a vapour trail which hung in the sky for at least half an hour, he said.

''I had to keep looking back.''
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Fireball 4

Meteor spotted over North Carolina

John Wendel
NBC Charlotte
Sat, 13 Jul 2013 14:40 UTC
Image
© Associated Press
Charlotte -- Some folks in North Carolina were lucky enough to have partially clear skies last night to see a large fireball or meteorite.

More than 200 people from Indiana to Ohio southward toward North Carolina reported seeing the large fireball. Most of the sightings came in just before midnight and folks reported the it was traveling from south to north across the sky. The meteorite was described as bright white with some red. There were no reports of sounds as it passed by the area.

If you saw the meteorite or fireball last night, you can make a report to the American Meteor Society.

First Warn Storm Spotter Stuart McDaniel has a All Sky Camera and caught the flash around 12:15am. Clouds did obscure a better view at his location in Lawndale, NC in Cleveland County.

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Fireball 4

Bright meteor spotted over southern Ontario, 12 July 2013

Nicole Mortillaro
Global News, Canada
Sat, 13 Jul 2013 01:39 UTC
Meteor
© Getty ImagesSeveral people witnessed a bright meteor over parts of Ontario on Friday night.
Toronto - Several people witnessed a bright meteor over parts of Ontario Friday night. The meteor was spotted in Toronto, Newmarket, Oshawa and as far away as Sudbury around 10 p.m.

Several people reported the meteor on the American Meteor Society's website. There was no sound associated with the meteor. It is unknown if the meteor is associated with the Delta Aquarid meteor shower that peaks on July 30. Typically the Delta Aquarids produce about 10 meteors an hour.
@emilyannfitz saw it as well from Queen & Bathurst area in Toronto. Was huge w a purple glow. #toronto #meteor

- Chris Seagram (@seags83) July 13, 2013

Green glowing sphere falling through the sky (with apparently an orange flame behind it)..I think I just saw my first #meteor of the summer!

- Amanda Wilton (@a_wilts) July 13, 2013
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Fireball 5

A bird? A plane? No, a meteor over Exeter, UK


This is Exeter, UK
Thu, 11 Jul 2013 23:01 UTC
People were stunned to see bright, flashing lights in the sky above Exeter. Several residents reported seeing what appeared to be a meteor on Monday evening. They described a "white ball" moving quickly above the city.

Trevor Sharp, from Exwick, said he saw the meteor just after dusk. He said: "We were putting our chickens away. It was low down near the horizon, pretty much east of Exwick, travelling south towards the north.

"It suddenly appeared a classic comet shape, a white ball with perhaps yellow eges and a bright white cone tail out the back. The person I was with saw it too. It was only there for a second. I never expected to see such a sight from my garden."

The object was spotted right across Devon.

Billy Dymond saw it from North Devon. He said: "We watched if for around three to four seconds, a large white ball turning green, not just going across but falling downwards towards earth at an incredible speed."
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Fireball 2

Covering up the celestial threat yet again: Boom! goes the mystery?

Braley Dodson
The Daily Republic
Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:24 UTC
Little-known military flight area might be cause of noise reports
Image
The Lake Andes Military Operations Area is shown in the lower right portion of this map taken from a report on the website of the Department of Defense’s Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Network and Information Exchange.

Some Mitchell-area residents were in a state of bewilderment last Saturday night after hearing a loud boom.

Though definitive information is scant, the boom could have been from a jet flying at supersonic speeds through a little-known military operations area.

The boom was heard around 11 p.m. and spawned calls to law enforcement officials in Mitchell and Mount Vernon, who did not determine a cause for the noise.

The National Weather Service office in Sioux Falls reported rain that night, but not much thunder. A lightning strike would be heard as a boom nearby where it hit, but would sound like a rumble from farther away.

Davison County Chief Deputy Steve Harr heard dispatchers discuss calls they received about a big boom. He heard reports of people who heard it in Mitchell, Mount Vernon and five miles northwest of Mount Vernon.

"This was a first for me," Harr said.

The noise may have been a sonic boom created by a jet flying faster than the speed of sound. The speed of sound varies with altitude and temperature, but is about 770 mph. The sonic boom would travel with the aircraft. Because the speed of sound can constantly change, it is possible to unintentionally break it.

The jet may have been flying through the Lake Andes Military Operations Area, an airspace used by the military for simulated air combat and complex missions, and practice maneuvers. It is the only such military operations area in the state, other than a small portion of the Powder River military air space in Montana and Wyoming that juts into South Dakota's northwest corner.
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Fireball 3

More cosmic fireworks with mass demonstrations, this time in Cairo


Sott.net
Fri, 05 Jul 2013 14:55 UTC
meteor egypt
© Screenshot YouTube
Is it just a coincidence that fireballs were filmed over Cairo and Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro as mass demonstrations peaked in Egypt on July 2nd, and Brazil on June 18th, 2013?

Check it out at 11 seconds... sure looks like a meteor/fireball to us.

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Comet

Cosmic surprise! Fireball 'with comet-like tail' streaks over Brazil, 18 June 2013


apolo11.com
Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:14 UTC
A fireball crossed the night sky on the night of Tuesday and was seen by many observers in the southeast region. The fireball had reddish color and may have been caused by reentry remains of a Chinese rocket type Long March.

According to some observers who wrote for Apolo11, the fireball crossed the sky slowly towards southeast and appeared to have a small tail like a comet.

"The 23h40, an object crossed the sky Araçatuba-SP. From the moment we saw it, was near the zenith going towards the southeast and was up near the horizon, behind houses, which could no longer see," said the observer Diego Adelson, who witnessed the passage.

According to Adelson, the object had reddish glow and brighter than the planet Venus. "You could see a small trail behind," he said.


Comment: How interesting that the recent surge in protests in Brazil peaked around this time... and that this comet fragment, completely undetected by authorities, was seen from Sao Paulo and other cities where the mass demonstrations are taking place...

Update 4 July 2013

Thanks to SOTT.net reader CIS for pointing out this second video of the meteor/fireball/comet fragment over Brazil on 18 June 2013:



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Fireball

Covering up the celestial threat again: "Sonic boom" shakes homes in Nantucket, Massachusetts

Jason Graziadei
The Inquirer and Mirror
Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:17 UTC
Image
A powerful noise believed to be a sonic boom from a passing aircraft swept over Nantucket Wednesday night, shaking houses and rattling the nerves of island residents in mid-island neighborhoods and areas of the south shore.

The incident was reported around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday night by many island residents who took to social-media sites to describe the loud noise that shook their homes and ask if others had experienced the same thing.

While the suspected culprit is a military aircraft that broke the sound barrier over the island, there was no definitive confirmation of the specific source of the noise.

Nantucket Memorial Airport tower manager Patrick Topham stated in a message "we have no confirmation as to what caused it at this point. We have to assume that it was a sonic boom caused by a military aircraft."

Nantucket police lieutenant Jerry Adams stated the source of the noise was a "sonic jet."

A similar incident occurred several months ago on the evening of Wednesday, March 21, when Nantucket residents reported a loud noise that shook houses.

Comment: A sonic boom from a military jet does not cause houses to shake...

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