Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

New Zealand: Early morning explosion 'like a sonic boom'


The Gisborne Herald
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:26 UTC
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.
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Meteor

US: Fireball over Colorado

Chris L. Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:23 UTC
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)
* Douglas County H.S. (video)
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Meteor

Meteor Flies Over Northwest Kansas

Todd Pittenger
KSAL News
Wed, 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.
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Meteor

US: Fireball over the Northeast

Frank Roylance
Maryland Weather
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:46 UTC
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"
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Telescope

Cameras Capture 'Fireball' In The Sky: Meteor May Have Crashed In Ontario


Science Daily
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:15 UTC
all-sky view from Orangeville
© Western's Southern Ontario Meteor Network, University of Western OntarioAt 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).
For the second time this year, The University of Western Ontario Meteor Group has captured incredibly rare video footage of a meteor falling to Earth. 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.
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Meteor

Australia: Northern Territory meteorite mystery remains unsolved


ABC News
Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:27 UTC
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.
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Meteor

Astronomy Picture of the Day: Spectacular September meteor in Oklahoma

Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:36 UTC
Image
© 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.
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Meteor

Michigan, US: Early risers see fireball flash across the sky

Susan L. Oppat
Ann Arbor News
Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:07 UTC
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.
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Meteor

Ontario, Canada: Meteor lights up the Chatham sky

Aaron Hall
The Chatham Daily News
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:03 UTC
Carol Handsor and Gillian Andrews were greeted with a bright welcome during their usual morning stroll on Thursday.

While walking on a trail along Mud Creek behind John McGregor Secondary School, the Chatham residents witnessed a bright object falling from the sky.

"It was a huge ball of fire," Handsor told The Chatham Daily News.

"It had sort of a blueish tinge to it. The end of it was coming down with sort of a tail of flames. It went down quick."
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Meteor

Fireball spotted over Australia

Marianna Papadakis
St. George and Sunderland Shire Leader
Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:58 UTC
Image
© Steve QuirkA meteor the size of a cricket ball travelling at a typical speed of 20 kilometres a second can light up the ground as brightly as the moon
Early risers who spotted a greenish-yellow light flashing across the shire on Monday probably witnessed a meteor.

Surfers at Cronulla Beach who saw it moving from east to west over Kurnell at 5.20am said it lasted about five seconds before it split into three and disintegrated into a vapour trail.

''I knew it wasn't a shooting star; it was heaps bigger and much closer,'' said one of three surfers who saw it. ''It looked like a ball-shooter [fireworks].''
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