Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

Hawaii: Colored 'fireballs' light up evening sky

Coco Zickos
The Garden Island
Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:29 UTC
Wailua - Residents are still talking about the unique light show they witnessed in the evening skies last week.

A "big ol' honking fireball" was what Steve Yoder said he saw while he was on his way to Wailua from Waimea the night of Dec. 2. A "flaming green" object lit up the eastern sky right before 9 p.m.

"I hadn't started drinking yet," he said with a laugh.

In fact, Yoder said he found it hard to believe there has not yet been an explanation for what he saw, much like the loud noise over Kalaheo reported by residents in May of this year.

"I've seen meteorites all my life," he said. But added that what he saw was much different. "It was either a gigantic asteroid or one of the biggest meteorites I have ever seen."
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Meteor

Bluish-green fireball sighted over northern Germany


Deutsche Presse-Agentur/The Local
Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:10 UTC
Several eyewitnesses reported seeing a bluish-green fireball over northern Germany on Monday night - possibly a large meteor burning up in the Earth's atmosphere, according to experts at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).

The object was first sighted over Braunschweig around 11:40 pm, but people in Celle, Delmenhorst, Lüneburg, Grabow, Kiel and Hannover also spotted the fireball streaking across the sky. The Network for Researching Unusual Heavenly Phenomena (CENAP) said on Tuesday the object eventually broke up into brightly glowing pieces before disappearing.

Wilfried Tost from the DLR said the fireball was likely a meteor, explaining that on average one falls to Earth over Central Europe each month.

Last spring, a German meteorite researcher found the remains of another spectacular fireball on the Danish island of Lolland.
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Meteor

US: "Electric" Blue Streak (Meteor?) Seen in Eastern Sky


UFOs Northwest
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:58 UTC
Posted: December 2, 2009

Date of Sighting: November 29, 2009
Time of Sighting: 12:05 to 12:10 AM PST
Location of Sighting: Longview, Washington (Southwestern Washington)

Description: I saw an electric blue streak in the eastern sky. The object was about 1 & 1/2 times the size of the moon at that time. The object was about an inch to the left of the moon, which was visually about a foot above the horizon. I noticed the object when it was at about the height the moon was at this point. It descended towards the horizon in a straight line lasting 1 to 2 seconds although the tail did not really appear to be tapering. I immediately thought meteorite & half expected to hear it impact somewhere east of Longview, Washington. My impression was of a round electric blue, large object moving toward the eastern sky in very rapid stages. Was this a meteorite? I have never seen this color nor an object other than the moon of this size in the sky.
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Meteor

USA: Calculations estimate meteor lit up 500,000 miles

John Hollenhorst
ksl.com
Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:00 UTC
Salt Lake City -- Space buffs have some astounding new calculations about the gigantic fireball that lit up our part of the west two weeks ago. They now estimate the meteor lit up 500,000 square miles bright as day, and they've learned a lot more by studying some spectacular images.

A lot of what people thought is turning out to be wrong. The Nov. 18 fireball was apparently much higher and farther away than it appeared, never closer than 120 miles to Salt Lake City, which makes its brightness all the more amazing.

Dash-cam video from a police car in Grand Junction, Colo, provided vital clues to meteor trackers. Almost 300 miles away, it shows the fireball lighting up the sky, all the way on the opposite side of Utah.

Seth Jarvis of Clark Planetarium calls it God's flash bulb, briefly illuminating a half million square miles.

"From our area here, it was as bright as the sun," he said.

In surveillance video from the Salt Lake valley, the Wasatch Mountains turn from midnight to noon, as if a zillion-watt light bulb switched on.
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Blackbox

Australia: Earthquake, Sonic Boom, Meteorite? It Was Us, Says RAAF

Alysson Watson
The Herald
Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:17 UTC
A Williamtown RAAF base spokesman has suggested that "supersonic activity" by aircraft taking part in a major defense exercise off the coast was responsible for the shaking felt by Hunter residents last night.

The spokesman said there were aircraft taking part in the East Coast Air Defence Exercise about 10.30 last night when the shaking was felt.

He said that while the aircraft may have been operating some 50 kilometres off the coast, conducive atmospheric conditions may have caused the supersonic soundwave to travel further than would normally be expected.

The spokesman said the aircraft were operating within flight rules and restrictions.
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Meteor

Canada: Fireballs spotted in Edmonton sky

Richard Warnica
Edmontonjournal.com
Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:45 UTC
Ah to be an early riser: first to the paper, first to the coffee, and, of course, first to the occasional fireball scorching through the sky.

Twice in as many mornings this week early birds have reported fiery objects in the atmosphere above Edmonton.

On Thursday at about 7:15 a.m., a fireball was spotted travelling low along the horizon from the northeast to the east, according to the Telus World of Science. The next day, on Friday, a second was eyed in the west at about 5:50 a.m.
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Meteor

US: Mysterious 'fireball' sighting over Massachusetts not science fiction

Lynne Hendricks
The Daily News
Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:58 UTC
As Ernest Merrill was driving down Route 113 in West Newbury on Saturday night, he glimpsed what many astronomers refer to as a once-in-a-lifetime sighting - a fireball falling from the sky.

Merrill's friends think he's crazy, but scientists say it's entirely possible. Referred to by astronomers as a "fireball," it is caused by a larger-than-average particle, perhaps from a Leonid meteor shower, shooting through the earth's atmosphere and blazing a fiery trail to the treeline.

The object was like nothing 67-year-old from Salisbury and his wife, Laura, had ever seen before.

"We were riding along, and it was dark," Merrill said. "We were talking about the moon, and all of a sudden this thing came into the Earth's atmosphere and was shooting across the sky with a tail, like fire coming off and going all the way toward Haverhill. We watched it going down, and it finally disappeared by the trees. It came into the Earth's atmosphere and it was burning up as it was coming down."

Comment:
That fiery display, similar perhaps to what Merrill saw on Saturday, is a rare occurrence that meteor experts track as "fireball sightings,"
As regular Sott readers know, fireball sightings are not all that rare now. All one needs to do is put the word fireball, or meteor in our search engine and you will see lots of reports of these "rare" sightings.

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Meteor

Meteor turns night into day with bright explosion over South Africa

Sapa
TimesLive.co.za
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:44 UTC
Image
© Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research AssociationSatellite image of the Vredefort Dome meteor impact crater: South Africa is home to the world's largest and oldest (known) meteor impact crater
"What people saw last night was almost certainly a meteor," Claire Flanagan an astronomer at the Johannesburg Planetarium said.

People saw a bright "greenish, bluish" light heading towards Pretoria at about 11pm on Saturday night.

"It moved over the Gauteng Province towards Limpopo... it travels very fast and was about 90 kilometres up," said Flanagan.

The meteor was a hot topic of discussion in the forum on mybroadband.co.za.

"I saw a light flash the sky at about 8pm, at first I thought I was imagining it, but my friend also saw it," wrote someone who saw the meteor.

"... Maybe it's people getting abducted by aliens...I walked in the house looked out [and] the sky was lit. It looked how it normally [does] at 5am."

Comment: Update: This is allegedly a video of "the meteor that passed through South Africa and landed in Botswana on Saturday":


Update 2: A new video has surfaced showing this event in all its spectacular glory!



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Meteor

US: Did meteor hit near Dugway, Utah?


Desert News
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:36 UTC
There's new evidence that Wednesday morning's spectacular fireball meteor may have landed in Utah.

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Meteor

Queensland, Australia: Green object that lit up sky a chip off an old meteor

Rodney Chester
The Courier-Mail
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:10 UTC
Experts say a fire ball that streaked across the sky above south-east Queensland last night was a "chip off the old block of some asteroid".

The meteor was spotted by people from the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast and across Brisbane around 9.45pm.

Witnesses said the meteor was a green glow travelling from south-east to north-west, leaving a visible trail for 10 to 15 minutes.

Speaking on ABC radio this morning, Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium curator Mark Rigby ruled out space junk as an explanation.
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