Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 5

'Experts' say fireball with 'glowing train of fire' seen from Canada to Georgia on Sunday was 'probably a falling satellite'

Tim Ciesco
WSLS
Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:45 UTC
Roanoke, Virginia -- An object that looked like a giant fireball made a brief appearance in the sky at around 9:30pm Sunday -- and while no one can say with 100 percent certainty what it was, experts tell us they have a pretty good idea.

Aerospace Corporation -- a federally funded research and development center based in California that works with the Air Force and NASA -- says the timing and witness descriptions are consistent with a satellite that fell back into Earth's atmosphere.

That satellite, called Cosmos 1484, was launched by the Soviet Union back in 1983.

Sightings were reported from Canada all the way down to Georgia. Aerospace says that's a much greater distance than you typically see with these events, which is why they're continuing to investigate. The American Meteor Society received several dozen reports, including a handful from our region.
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Fireball

100 people report 'fireball' streaking across the Virginia sky Sunday night


WSET-TV
Sun, 27 Jan 2013 22:43 UTC
Fireball
© Sky and TelescopeA fireball from 1998.
Lynchburg, Virginia - Dozens of viewers, nearing over 100 as of Sunday Night, report seeing a very bright "fireball" streak across the night sky.

Witnesses report a vivid tail of fire-like red particles extending from the fireball.

The fireball was likely a large, or close meteor. These events are more common than many people think.

Debris from space enter Earth's atmosphere all of the time and burn up in our sky as meteors. Occasionally, a meteor will be vivid or large enough to be described as a "fireball".

For more on "fireballs", click here.
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Question

Exploding meteorite? Confusion in Corbin, Kentucky after residents report loud, brief 'thunder roll' on sunny day


WKYT.com
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:19 UTC
Fake Quakes?
© WKYT.com
Corbin, Kentucky - It's been described as an explosion, an earthquake, a thunder roll, or even as small as a car crash. Some say there was one tremor, others say two, one resident said they felt three violent shakes, and yet some say they didn't feel anything at all.

While the reports vary, the reality is something rattled Corbin around midday on Wednesday.

"Just a couple of seconds, it didn't last long," described Christopher Day, "I thought it was thunder and I looked up in the sky and, of course, it was sunny and cold out. It couldn't be thunder."

But Day wasn't the only one to feel it, Deanna Rains said dishes began falling into her sink.
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Fireball 5

Great ball of fire over Montreal, 25 January 2013

Laura Casella
CJAD
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:07 UTC
Many early risers looking skyward this morning, spotted a ball of fire streaking across the sky over the Montreal region.

The CJAD and Astral newsroom received calls from places as widely seperated as St-Constant on the south shore, Two Mountains, and Laval. There were also calls from Boucherville, Saint-Laurent, and Ile-Perrot.

Claude Comeau called from Ile-Perrot to describe what he saw.

"I took it as when you see fireworks, and the spark lands towards the ground, but I didn't think anything of it."

Another caller described it as a white comet with a blue tail.
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Fireball

"Bright fireball" over Northern Pennsylvania, 21 January 2013

Kelly Waters
Wayne Independent
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:10 UTC
Image
The all sky camera at the Thomas G. Cupillari '60 Observatory at Keystone College; the camera's view of the fireball after it lit up the sky Monday night.

Just before midnight on Monday, a bright flash occurred, lighting up the entire sky.It was a bright fireball," said Thomas Cupillari, director of the Thomas G. Cupillari '60 Observatory at Keystone College. "They graze the top of the atmosphere and can stay for quite awhile," Cupillari said. "This fireball was so bright it lit up the entire sky around it. They usually burn up within one to three seconds. There was one I saw years ago that lasted for 5-20 seconds. It's very unusual for them to be so bright and last that long."

The all sky camera is a fish eye lens that is pointed straight up into the air and can see 360 degrees around. The camera is in a network with Sandia National Laboratory through New Mexico State University. They are set up at various locations so common events that overlap can be tracked.

"The information from the cameras allows the laboratory to track where it came from, how high it was, and more," Cupillari explained. "It helps separate nature from manmade events."
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Fireball 5

"Flash in the sky" above New Mexico was a meteor, 21 January 2013

Kelly Waters
wayneindependent.com
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 06:06 UTC
Just before midnight on Monday, a bright flash occurred, lighting up the entire sky.

"It was a bright fireball," said Thomas Cupillari, director of the Thomas G. Cupillari '60 Observatory at Keystone College.

The all sky camera at the observatory caught footage of the fireball.

"They graze the top of the atmosphere and can stay for quite awhile," Cupillari said. "This fireball was so bright it lit up the entire sky around it. They usually burn up within one to three seconds. There was one I saw years ago that lasted for 5-20 seconds. It's very unusual for them to be so bright and last that long."

The all sky camera caught 3-4 seconds of the fireball, but Cupillari predicts it actually lasted 5-6 seconds.

The all sky camera is a fish eye lens that is pointed straight up into the air and can see 360 degrees around.
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Evil Rays

Booms in downstate Indiana still a mystery


Associated Press
Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:52 UTC
A series of late-night, window-rattling booms reported in two Southwestern Indiana counties has left investigators stumped.

Several residents of Vanderburgh and Warrick counties reported hearing loud booms and feeling vibrations on the nights of Jan. 7 and 8, spurring an investigation into the noises.

The Evansville Courier & Press reported Monday that local public safety agencies have found no concrete evidence about the source of the noises. The sounds had generated speculation that they might have been caused by explosions in nearby coal mines or produced by aircraft.
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Comet 2

Researcher suggests that predawn spectacle over California and Nevada last week was a 'small flaming comet'

Henry K. Lee
SFGate
Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:57 UTC
The fireball that lit up the predawn Northern California sky last week was a small comet that flamed out when it hit the Earth's atmosphere, a researcher said Tuesday.

The comet "instantly turned into dust and gas," resulting in the flash of light seen by many at 5:21 a.m. Thursday, said meteor hunter Peter Jenniskens, a scientist at the Seti Institute in Mountain View.

Because the comet vaporized, no pieces fell to Earth, Jenniskens said.

The comet came into contact with the Earth's atmosphere just north of Yosemite National Park at a speed of 160,000 mph, Jenniskens said.
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Fireball 4

Bright fireball a captivating sight across Kanto region of Japan

Takashi Sugimoto
The Asahi Shimbun
Mon, 21 Jan 2013 01:13 UTC
Meteor
© Fumiaki GotoA shooting star observed before dawn on Jan. 20 near the Dodaira astronomical observatory in Tokigawa, Saitama Prefecture. Exposure time: 16.8 seconds.

A shooting star accompanied by a loud boom was observed before dawn Jan. 20 across broad areas of the Kanto region, igniting intense interest on the Internet with the posting of video footage and eyewitness accounts.

Fumiaki Goto, 28, an office worker in Tokigawa, Saitama Prefecture, captured footage of the fireball by chance while taking photos of the night sky just after 2:40 a.m.

The plume was enhanced suddenly after its color turned to bluish white from light green and fell toward Ibaraki Prefecture, finally with a reddish hue, said Goto.

The fireball was likely a meteorite, experts said. Video footage taken from a car had more than 200,000 hits.

Chikara Shimoda of the Japan Fireball Network, a group of amateur astronomers, said the fireball disappeared at an altitude of about 30 kilometers.

"It may have burnt up, or perhaps it hit the sea," said Shimoda, 55.
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Fireball

Multicolored fireball blazes over Northwestern U.S., 11 January 2013

Robert Lunsford
American Meteor Society
Sat, 19 Jan 2013 17:06 UTC
Image
© AMS
The American Meteor Society has received 40 reports of a bright meteor that occurred near 06:30 PST on Friday morning January 11, 2013. Brightness estimates of this fireball vary considerably, but the average lies near magnitude -18, which lies between the light produced by the full moon and the sun. Every color of the rainbow has been reported with blue and white being most mentioned. A great majority of the reports have come from Washington, but sightings of the same event have also been received from Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia. Individual reports may be viewed in the 2013 AMS Fireball Table Refer to event #63 for 2013.

For those not familiar with meteors and fireballs, a fireball is a meteor that is larger than normal. Most meteors are only the size of small pebbles. A meteor the size of a softball can produce light equivalent to the full moon for a short instant. The reason for this is the extreme velocity at which these objects strike the atmosphere. Even the slowest meteors are still traveling at 10 miles per SECOND, which is much faster than a speeding bullet. Fireballs occur every day over all parts of the Earth. It is rare though for an individual to see more than one or two per lifetime as they also occur during the day, on a cloudy night, or over a remote area where no one sees it. Observing during one of the major annual meteor showers can increase your chance of seeing another one of these bright meteors.
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