Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

Many Report Seeing a Fireball in the Sky Over Oneida Lake, New York State


WSYR-TV
Fri, 21 Sep 2012 22:48 UTC
Syracuse -- Reports of a fireball in the sky over Oneida Lake scrambled several area fire departments into action Friday night.

Water rescue teams were sent to search an area off Shakelton Point near Bridgeport around 8:45 pm.

Water rescue teams were assisted by the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department Air One helicopter.

Oswego 911 tells Newschannel 9 that rescue teams found no evidence of any trouble on the lake.

Several of our Facebook fans commented about the alleged fireball, while several viewers called our newsroom at about the same time claiming they had see a light in the sky at around the same time.

The American Meteor Society posted on its website several reports from people who reported seeing a fireball in the sky over the northeast United States.

Raymond Dague of the Syracuse Astronomical Society says he didn't see it, but told NewsChannel 9 he's seen reports on Twitter and elsewhere about it.

Dague believes it was a meteor, probably a relatively slow moving one beginning to burn up as it hit the atmosphere at about 60 miles up. He says these types of natural phenomenon can be quite beautiful and are a rare treat to see.
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Meteor

Huge Comet Spotted Over North West England


The Mirror, UK
Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:33 UTC

Twitter went into meltdown this evening as hundreds of people reported seeing a comet or meteor shower over the north of England.

Flashing lights apparently flew across the night sky at just before 11pm, sending people across the region into a frenzy.

Llinos Thomas, a 30-year-old dentist and Boyfriend Matt Brennen, a 26-year-old engineer, were among those who witnessed the events.

Mr Thomas said: "We were on the A55 from Chester towards North Wales and we thought we saw a firework.

"It was a massive cluster of lights in the sky, but travelling really quickly West and that's when we realised it was a meteor shower.

"It was travelling at really high speed for ten seconds and died out and faded away.
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Meteor

Meteor or Comet Fragment breaks up over UK, 21 September 2012

Fraser Cain
Universe Today
Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:01 UTC

Twitter is all abuzz with sightings of a huge fireball meteor that streaked across the skies Friday night at approximately 22:00 UTC. There are reports from Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Central England.

I'm going to link a bunch of videos so you can check out the event from multiple angles, but I want to make a completely unscientific judgement: it kind of looks like a re-entering spacecraft. Take a look at what the Jules Verne spacecraft looked like when it came back into the Earth's atmosphere. See how it broke up into all those pieces? And don't let anyone fool you with this picture. It was taken about 3 years ago in the Netherlands.

Phil made a similar observation, but he's still on the fence. We'll have to wait for someone official to tell us what it was.

Did you see it? Did you get a video?

I'll give you an update as soon as I know anything else.

Here are some videos. Fair warning, there's a lot of bad language in almost all the videos. I can't blame them, I'd probably be swearing too. Just keep that in mind as you watch with your kids.
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Meteor

Flashback A Thermal Airburst Impact Structure

Dennis Cox
craterhunter.wordpress.com
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:20 UTC
Mark Boslough's super computer generated, comet airburst simulation is a must see.In it we see the exploding comet detonating high in the atmosphere, and becoming a supersonic down draft of thermal impact plasma hotter than the surface of the sun. But watch the sequence closely. And pay particular attention to the post impact updraft at the center of the flow. And to the directions of flow of the airburst vortex at the surface, as the impact plume develops at the center of the vortex. You might want to replay it a few times.


The old way of imagining of those things was to think of it as a point explosion high in the atmosphere. And it's still popular in the press to pretend the atmosphere dissipates the blast. As you can see, it doesn't. Using super computers has allowed them to retain the downward momentum. So we can see the impact vortex hit the ground as a supersonic blast hotter than the surface of the sun. It would be naive to a fault to think such energies can be dissipated without significant planetary scarring, or ablative geomorphology.
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Meteor

SOTT Focus: Incoming! Meteor or Comet Fragment Explodes Above Southwestern US, Prompting US Army 'Missiles' Cover-up

Niall Bradley
Sott.net
Sun, 16 Sep 2012 04:29 UTC
Image
© Trish Van HousenPhoto taken near Phoenix, Arizona of the trail left behind by an incoming meteor/comet fragment that exploded above southwestern US on September 13th 2012.
On Thursday morning, 13th September 2012, early risers from all over the southwestern United States - California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico - were stunned by the appearance of a vivid luminescent trail high up in the atmosphere. Photos taken by residents reminded me of the glowing trail seen across the Caucasus on the 7th June 2012 (which I have written about here). My suspicion that we were looking at the arrival and overhead explosion of yet another meteor or cometary fragment (MoCF) solidified when I read some of the ridiculous claims of the US Army that they had test-fired a rocket/missile at 5.30am local time on the 13th of September.

Folks contacted law enforcement in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado to report "a crash". A sheriff's deputy in northern New Mexico said he witnessed "an explosion" and part of the object breaking apart from the main body. No one reported a trail moving from the ground upwards, just a very fast-moving dot in the sky that produced a very bright trail mid-atmosphere, indicating that nothing was launched from the ground.

Damage control quickly went into operation, with Associated Press reporting that:
The "explosion" was a normal separation of the first and second stages of the unarmed Juno ballistic missile that was fired at 6:30 a.m. MT from Fort Wingate near Gallup, N.M., said Drew Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range. The expended first stage landed in a designated area of U.S. Forest Service land.
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Meteor

Daytime fireballs spark ground fires in Okanagan Valley, British Columbia

Deborah Pfeiffer
castanet.net
Tue, 11 Sep 2012 06:02 UTC
Image
© Jennifer ZielinskiInvestigators examine the spot where a meteorite slammed into the valley and caused the Peachland fire on Tuesday Sept. 11.
Let me start by saying the UFOs in this story are Unidentified Falling Objects; and now (as Paul Harvey would say) the rest of the story.

The cause of the fire burning in the hills above Peachland is as yet unknown, but some say it could have been the result of a meteor shower in the Okanagan.

Several residents report seeing fiery streaks in the sky around the same time as the Trepanier Creek Wildfire that started near Trepanier Linear Park Sunday afternoon.

"I was driving north up Highway 97 when I saw a really, really bright light coming straight down, off to the right over the lake," said Philip Hare of Kelowna. "It was so close I felt like I could touch it, then it was gone. Then I heard about the fire and thought that was way too coincidental for me."

Hare reported the sighting at 3 p.m., the fire started around the same time.

"It was a flash of bright white, blue hot with flames."
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Meteor

"Near Earth Objects have been whizzing past us lately, undetected until they have been practically on top of us" - 2 NEO's sweep past Earth Sept. 13-14


CBS News / SPACE.com
Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:32 UTC
Image
Asteroid 2012 QG42
A newfound asteroid that may be the size of three football fields will whiz by Earth on Thursday (Sept. 13), and you can watch the close encounter live online. Asteroid 2012 QG42 is between 625 feet to 1,400 feet wide (190 to 430 meters) and was first spotted by scientists last month. Researchers say the space rock has no chance of hitting Earth this week when it makes its closest approach on Thursday.

The asteroid will pass by at a safe distance of about 7.5 times the Earth-moon distance. The moon is, on average, about 238,000 miles from Earth. Asteroid 2012 QG42 is, however, listed as a "potentially hazardous asteroid" by the Minor Planet Center at Cambridge, Mass., meaning it may pose a threat in the future.

At least two online observatories are tracking the asteroid's pass by Earth. The Virtual Telescope Project run by astronomer Gianluca Masi in Italy began providing a live video stream today at 6 p.m. EDT (22:00 UTC). You can see that video stream here.

2 NEO's flying past Earth Sept. 13-14, 2012
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Meteor

Mysterious Light In Phoenix Skies - Meteor or Missile Launch?


ABC15.com
Thu, 13 Sep 2012 09:29 UTC
A mysterious formation in the Valley sky that shined bright Thursday morning had hundreds of viewers emailing and calling ABC15. The formation was seen shining bright around 5:30 a.m. and eventually disappeared.
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© Steve Miley"This was taken at around 5:40 am this morning. It started at the top right and then fell to the left. Maybe a meteor?"
SEE MORE PHOTOS ON ABC15.COM
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Meteor

Meteorite crashes into house in Honduras

Lito Zipitría
elreporte.com
Fri, 31 Aug 2012 15:53 UTC

Translation by lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com

We analyzed a bolide from space that was embedded in a house in Comayagua. Although there was damage where the stone entered, it did not hit anyone.

The missile crashed into a family home in Donaire Valley and has attracted interest from experts in the department of astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH).

The fragment, based on a preliminary analysis, is considered to be a meteorite.

Comment: Just ten days earlier, another meteorite appears to have hit the ground in Honduras: 20th August 2012, Honduras Investigates Alleged Meteorite Crash

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Meteor

Updated Images: Jupiter Swallows an Asteroid - or a Comet?


SpaceWeather.com
Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:14 UTC
Around the world, amateur astronomers have been scanning the cloudtops of Jupiter for signs of debris from an explosion witnessed by Dan Peterson and George Hall on Sept. 10th. So far the cloud layer is blank. "Several observers have now obtained excellent images on the second and third rotations after the fireball, and there is nothing new nor distinctive at the impact site," reports John H. Rogers, director of the Jupiter Section of the British Astronomical Association:
Image
The fireball was probably caused by a small asteroid or comet hitting Jupiter. Apparently, the giant planet swallowed the impactor whole.

Comment: Comparing this image with the image of the impact site, it appears NASA is downplaying the size of whatever hit Jupiter.
Image
Image
© George Hall


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