Fire in the Sky
Jared Broyles
KFSM.comTue, 11 Nov 2008 17:22 UTC
Fort Smith - A loud boom sounding similar to an explosion rocked the quiet western Arkansas night. No police or fire responded to an accident scene though. So what did Northwest Arkansas and River Valley residents hear? 5NEWS investigated and found a logical explanation.
Not only did residents in our region hear the massive boom, one from Spiro and several from Beaver Lake reported seeing yellow and green flashes of light. A spokesman for NASA says he's not aware of what it was but didn't disagree with the theory that a meteor might be to blame.
9NewsSun, 09 Nov 2008 22:26 UTC
Unidentified bright light seen streaking across Front Range
Denver - Just before 7 a.m. on Sunday morning, viewers from across the Front Range began contacting the 9NEWS Information Center saying they had seen what they thought was a meteor.
Makaraka residents awoke with a start yesterday as a loud explosion rattled windows in the area.
Tony Walker said his first thought when he heard and felt the shock wave at about 6.10am was that something had hit his family's house.
"All our neighbours in Granny Tarr and Tory Street also thought something had hit their house. When I heard it I looked out the window and saw someone had a fire going and thought it may have been an aerosol can or something, but it sounded more like a sonic boom.
This fireball occurred at 7:29 PM MDT over central Colorado. I have received over 100 witness reports, from Casper, WY in the north, Albuquerque, NM is the south, the Western Slope to the west, and the Front Range to the east.
Data has been recovered from the following Network cameras:
*
Cloudbait (
details,
video)
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Douglas County H.S. (
video)
Todd Pittenger
KSAL NewsWed, 29 Oct 2008 08:16 UTC
The skies over Northwest Kansas Tuesday night were like a scene from a science fiction movie. A bright light sped across the sky, followed by a loud explosion. Osborne County Sheriff Curtis Miner tells KSAL News that it was not an unidentified flying object, or anything sinister. It was a large meteor.
The Sheriff says that the meteor entered the atmosphere, and as it burnt it broke up into three pieces. It also broke the sound barrier, causing a sonic boom that shook homes in Osborne.
Hearing about another fireball meteor, this one spotted last evening in the northeastern sky. Here's a report from Bowley's Quarters, in eastern Baltimore County. Did anyone else spot this one?
"Hi there, last night about 7pm I believe - Bowleys Quarters- there was an amazing fireball I saw through clouds traveling north in the north eastern sky. I haven't seen anything else on this- I know meteors are common but this was so bright and through the clouds I was amazed. Have you heard anything on this? Thanks, Marcie"
© Western's Southern Ontario Meteor Network, University of Western Ontario
At 05:28 am on Wednesday morning, October 15, all seven cameras of Western's Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN) recorded a bright, slow fireball in the predawn sky. In the all-sky view from Orangeville the fireball passes from upper left (North) to right (West) ending near the setting moon (the brightest object at upper right).
The team of astronomers suspects the fireball dropped meteorites in a region north of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, that may total as much as a few hundred grams in mass.
The source of bright lights, an Earth tremor and loud explosion in Central Australia remain a mystery for now.
Northern Territory police say a meteorite landing is a possibility.
Residents at the remote Wallace Rockhole community west of Alice Springs say they heard a loud explosion and felt the ground shake last night.
Others reported seeing spectacular lights.
Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASASat, 11 Oct 2008 04:36 UTC
© Howard Edin
On September 30, a spectacular bolide or fireball meteor surprised a group of amateur astronomers enjoying dark night skies over the Oklahoma panhandle's Black Mesa State Park in the Midwestern US. Flashing past familiar constellations Taurus (top) and Orion, the extremely bright meteor was captured by a hillside camera overlooking the 2008 Okie-Tex Star Party.
University of Michigan astronomy professor Mario Mateo was a little jealous when he learned a group of Ypsilanti bus drivers and a teacher saw an apparent fireball Thursday morning.
"Shoot. I wish I'd seen it!'' he said. "They can be very, very bright and are quite impressive.''
This bolide - or fireball - may have been nothing more than a rock up to about a foot in diameter, Mateo said.
It certainly impressed Josephine Watson and Shirley Lucas.
The bus drivers were in the parking lot at the end of Railroad Street in Ypsilanti at about 6:50 a.m. when they spotted a line of fire in the sky that tracked roughly west-to-east.
"Then poof, it disappeared,'' Lucas said.
