Fire in the SkyS

Meteor

US: Meteorite streaks across New Mexico sky

Gadi Schwartz and Matthew Kappus
KOB.com
Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:20 UTC
Scientists think a fireball that flew over New Mexico may have been close enough to actually hit the ground.

A Santa Fe astronomer was able to catch the fiery streak on video. Thomas Ashcraft says the fireball didn't disintegrate when it hit the atmosphere. It may have landed somewhere near Taos.
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Meteor

Canada, Ontario: Grimsby meteorite found


The Standard
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:00 UTC
The Grimsby space rock has been found.

A fragment of meteorite the size of a golf ball smashed in the windshield of a Grimsby family's sport utility vehicle on Sept. 25, according to a media release from the University of Western Ontario.
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Meteor

Astronomers digging for meteors in Grimsby, Western Ontario

Peter Downs
The Tribune / Sun Media
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:02 UTC
Image
© University of Western OntarioA composite photograph of the meteor that streaked across southern Ontario Sept. 25. It is believed meteorites landed in the Grimsby area.
Space rocks formed when the solar system was created billions of years ago are believed to have fallen to Earth near Grimsby in a fiery light show two weeks ago.

Astronomers will be digging through farmers' fields Thursday and Friday on the hunt for hunks of a meteor that blazed across the skies of southern Ontario Sept. 25 shortly after 9 p.m.

The beachball-sized meteor was first picked up by cameras operated by the University of Western Ontario's physics and astronomy department 100 kilometres above Guelph as the fireball streaked southeastward at a speed of about 75,000 km/h.

Astronomers at the university have traced the meteor's path and believe chunks of it may have landed above the escarpment within a 10-km radius of Grimsby.

"We're pretty certain something came down," said Phil McCausland, a postdoctoral fellow with the university's astronomy department.
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Meteor

Meteor explodes over Groningen, Netherlands: Fireball seen from Belgium and Germany


Dutch News
Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:51 UTC
Image
© NU.nl/Robert Mikaelyan
Hundreds of people report seeing a spectacular fireball or meteorite over the Netherlands in Tuesday's clear evening skies.

The police emergency number, Dutch coastguard and KNMI weather bureau report dozens of phone calls about the meteorite, which was seen in Germany and Belgium.

'I was standing in front of my window when there was a bright flash of light and a white fireball in the sky fell apart into three smaller ones,' eyewitness Erik Alberts from Zuidbroek in Groningen province told Nos tv. 'Like fireworks. A few seconds later, perhaps half a minute, there was a low rumble and the windows shook.'
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Meteor

Video: Fireball lights up sky over Iceland


mbl.is
Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:43 UTC
A police dash-cam catches a fireball lighting up the sky in the south of Iceland

Translation of article:

The police in Selfoss caught these weird lights in the sky on tape shortly after midnight last night. The officers were going east during a routine highway patrol on Eyrarbakka-road when they noticed a spectacular flare which to them seemed to be heading to the river ร–lfusรก. Speculations are that this was a meteorite entering the atmosphere.
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Meteor

UK: Strange Fireball Seen in Night Sky


Malvern Gazette
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:19 UTC
A Bosbury man who witnessed a strange light in the sky on Saturday night is wondering if anyone else saw the same thing.

Mark Beard saw the orange glow at around 9.45pm to 10pm as he was standing outside his rural home.

He said: "I was at my back door looking east, and to my left, appearing above the tops of houses was a large fireball, a tenth the size of the moon."

He said it was orange and moved through the sky for about two or three minutes in a north-south direction. It then slowly started to fade and then disappear, fading out before it had reached the horizon in the south.
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Meteor

Cosmic shock and awe: Fireball explodes over Argentina


Momento24
Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:27 UTC
Fireball over Argentina
A glowing trail left down by the meteor that exploded over Mendoza, Argentina on 29th September 2009.

Yesterday afternoon the inhabitants of Mendoza, La Pampa, San Luis, and Cordoba saw a meteorite coming down the sky. It finally desintegrated with a loud explosion before it hit the earth.

The object, which initially scared the residents, was seen yesterday in the General Alvear Department. It could be a meteorite or space junk, but the place where it fell isn't known, according to what the Copernicus Institute said today.

From 18.30 there was a cloud in the sky and the explosion was felt almost by all people, asaid Julio Alcaraz, police officer of Santa Isabel, a town located 320 kilometers west of Santa Rosa and 40 miles south of the border with Mendoza.

The chief of the Copernicus Institute, Jaime Garcia, said that "by the color, it would apparently be a meteorite." He added that "the meteorite's location is unknown but according to the information collected it wouldn't have landed on Mendoza".
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Meteor

Flashback Siberia meteorite flattens 40 sq miles

Robin Shepherd
Times Online
Sat, 07 Jun 2003 14:30 UTC
If it had hit Central London, Britain would no longer have a capital city. The force of the meteorite that hit eastern Siberia last September destroyed 40 square miles of forest and caused earth tremors felt 60 miles away.

An expedition from Russia's Kosmopoisk institute has only recently reached the site in a remote area north of Lake Baikal because of bad weather and difficult terrain, the Interfax news agency said yesterday.
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Meteor

Sept. 25, 2002: Mysterious Meteorite Dazzles Siberia

Randy Alfred
Wired
Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:47 UTC
Siberia Meteorite 2002
© NASA
2002: A large fireball flashes across the night skies of the Irkutsk region of Siberia. What may have been a comet causes electrical circuits to come alive and leaves residents worrying about radioactivity.

Eyewitnesses saw the sky light up. More than a hundred people in the sparsely settled area reported seeing it.

At least one person fell to the floor in horror, believing that some religious doomsday had arrived. Others were sure that nuclear war had broken out.
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Telescope

Was Vancouver light show a meteor or space junk?

Kimberley Shearon
The Province
Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:01 UTC
It wasn't a bird and it wasn't a plane. Was it a meteor?

Around 8 p.m. Saturday night a great, big ball of yellowy-white light streaked from east to west across the darkening sky.

Astronomer David Dodge said that the fireball was probably a meteor - basically a rock falling from space.

"It probably wasn't a piece of space junk. The reason why I saw that is that it was going from east to west, and 99.9 per cent of space stuff sent up there is not going east to west."
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