Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 4

Green fireball flashes across night sky in Lincolnshire, England

PWhitelam_LE
ThisIsLincolnshire
Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:28 UTC
Fireball
© This Is Lincolnshire
Sightings have been reported of a green 'fireball' flashing across the sky over Lincolnshire last night.

Lincoln City goalkeeper Paul Farman was among those who saw the phenomenon and wrote on Twitter at about 9pm that he'd seen a meteoroid or a shooting star.

RAF Waddington spokesman Lindsey Askin said no flights from the base were in the air over Lincoln.

Astronomer Paul Money, who lives in Horncastle, caught a glimpse of the spectacle out the corner of his eye as it disappeared to the north.
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Fireball 2

Bright meteor streaks over Japan, 20 January 2013


lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 06:23 UTC
Eyewitness reports

20 January 2013 - Ellen Musahino, Tokyo, Japan 3:40 a.m.
2-3 seconds duration. East, very bright yellowish white. There was a flash and then a diving star bright as the moon with a long and beautiful tail. Little sparks along the tail. It was bright enough to be confused with the flash of a camera in a dark room.
20 January 2013 - A Shorb Nasu, Tochigi, Japan 2:42 JST
Around 5 seconds duration. Travelling West to East. A large flash of light like lightning followed by a bluish-green ball. Maybe as bright as the moon? It seemed very close. I've found some Youtube videos of the meteor, taken from from near Tokyo:
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Fireball 3

Loud unexplained boom heard by residents of Alice, Texas

Ofelia Garcia Hunter
Alice Echo-News Journal
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 16:01 UTC
A suspicious loud noise or explosion was heard about 10:30 p.m. Saturday by residents in Alice, but law enforcement officials weren't able to pinpoint the source.

Some reports said it came from the southside area and others said it was near the Alice airport. But sources so far have not located anything.

Acting Police Chief Albert Martinez said the department received about 15 calls that night about the boom, but were unable to locate anything. He added that a sonic boom was a strong possibility.
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Fireball 5

Wednesday's 'boom' has officials still looking for answers

John L. Ross
The Times-Tribune
Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:51 UTC
Corbin, Kentucky - "It sounded like an explosion."

"I thought I heard thunder."

"It may have been a sonic boom."

"We felt the house shake."

"I heard something twice."

"My wife and I felt an earthquake."

Dozens of reports similar to this flooded all areas of law enforcement Wednesday, from Whitley County, to Laurel, Knox and McCreary counties.

The general consensus is the first "boom" was approximately at 1 p.m., the second around 2 p.m.

However, as of press time, no official answers were available.

"There's no determination yet that this was a quake," said Whitley County Sheriff Colan Harrell. "This was just a real freak thing."
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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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