Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

Bright September Meteor

William Cooke
NASA
Fri, 24 Sep 2010 02:01 UTC
Meteor_1
© NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center PAO Steve Roy was out jogging early Friday morning with his dogs, Lilly and Scout, when he couldn't help but notice this bright meteor low in the eastern sky.

Also seen by NASA's all sky meteor cameras at MSFC and in Chickamauga, GA, the meteor was located above the Atlanta area, some 180 miles away from where he was running.

Meteor_2
© NASA
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Question

BOOM! What Happened In Chandler Arizona Sunday?


KPHO.com
Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:50 UTC
What Happened In Chandler?

CBS 5 News has crews working to find out what caused the loud booms reported by dozens of Chandler residents Sunday night.

On this Google map, 40 entries have been made pinpointing locations and times of the loud booms.

From the entries, it appears the booms happened Sunday around 6:30 p.m., 9:00 p.m. and midnight in the area of Dobson and Frye.
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Meteor

Asteroid Debris Strikes Earth in New Mexico?


Elpasoallsky Blogspot
Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:17 UTC
Recent multiple fireballs reports streaming in from North and South America may be linked with the near Earth passing asteroids of Sep 8-9. The most recent multiple events occurred last night (Sep 21, 2010) over Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. The first two of the multiple events were nearly simultanenous over central New Mexico. They were followed by Event 3, a 23 second major bolide event over northern New Mexico at 9:03pm MDT (03:03UTC) (see LunarMeteorite Hunters).

Event 4 occurred some one-and-a-half hours later at 10:36pm MDT (04:36UTC), and was also observed from El Paso, Texas. It was of short duration, approximately 1.5 seconds, with a visual magnitude of -6. It followed the identical trajectory of Events 1,2,3 but occurred farther south, probably over south central New Mexico.

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Meteor

New Mexico Fireball 21st September 2010


Space.com
Wed, 22 Sep 2010 02:58 UTC
Last night (Sept. 21st) around 09:01 pm MDT, a dazzling fireball glided across the skies of New Mexico and west Texas. "We've been getting a lot of calls in the newsroom about an object - maybe a meteorite - falling from the sky," says Peter St. Cyr of KOAT TV in Albuquerque. An all-sky camera outside Santa Fe caught the object in flight.

New Mexico Fireball
© Space.comNote: In the still from the movie above, the stationary light is the full Moon, the moving light is the fireball.
Watch a 5 MB movie.
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Meteor

Clear Skies and a Large Meteor Sighting Over the Southland Dazzles Commuters

Cameron Venable
Examiner
Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:49 UTC

The U.S. Coast Guard reports that the crew of the USS Sterett saw a fireball streak across the sky at around 5 a.m. Friday morning. Ironically this sighting happened during a time where the marine layer was not present.

Residents from Mexico to Los Angeles reported the sighting. There are no photos of the event at the current time, however there are probably thousands of eyewitnesses.

Early morning rush hour traffic traveling across the area would likely have seen the event. Since it was viewed from Mexico, San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles.
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Satellite

Two asteroids making a close approach

Steve Owens
BAA Blog
Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:25 UTC
Within the space of less than an hour on September 5, the Mount Lemmon Survey discovered two objects which will both pass by the Earth on September 8 at a distance closer than the Moon! This unprecedented coincidence provides an exciting observing challenge for amateurs although those observing from the UK will not have the best views.

The intrinsically smaller object, 2010 RF12, will be the more favourable observing target in that it passes closest at about 0.21 lunar-distance, i.e. about 80,000 km. Tonight from the UK (Sep 6/7) this object will be 17th magnitude but by tomorrow (Sep 7/8) it will be brightening rapidly from 16th to 15th magnitude and be accelerating from an apparent speed of about 30 "/min to 50 "/min. It passes closest around 2100 UT on the 8th but by then it will be difficult from any location on the Earth.
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Meteor

US: New Deal Man Finds Meteorite in Yard

Alyssa Dizon
Amarillo.com
Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:45 UTC
New Deal Meteorite
© Amarillo.com
New Deal - Discovering something out of this world was something the Smith family thought was only possible in movies and TV shows.

No burning rocks came crashing from the sky in this case - instead, Todd Smith happened to spot an odd-looking rock while he was mowing his front yard in June. The rock was partially buried in the ground near the gas meter, located a few feet from the roadway.

At first, he kept mowing, but since Todd and his family had seen the "Meteorite Men" TV show on the Science Channel, he said, he decided to go back and pick up the rock. As soon as he held it in his hand, he noticed it was not a typical rock.

"The weight of it was just wrong. That was the first thing that stood out to me," Todd said. "It crossed my mind that it could be (a meteorite) based on how it looked and all and how heavy it was. I thought it was probably a piece of iron."
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Meteor

Colombia: 'Giant Fireball' Was a Meteorite

Kirsten Begg
Colombia Reports
Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:56 UTC
Colombian Fireball
© Vanguardia Liberal
Colombian authorities confirmed that a "giant fireball" that fell from the sky in the Santander department, central Colombia, was a meteorite.

The Colombian media has been buzzing with eye witness accounts of the fireball, which caused a massive explosion at 3:15PM local time Sunday.

Andina.com reported that Bucaramanga Mayor Fernando Vargas confirmed that the phenomenon was a meteorite that left a crater 100 meters in diameter when it crashed into the earth in the San Joaquin municipality in Santander.

Colombian air force helicopters were commissioned to fly over the area to try to locate the source of the explosion.

The director of the University of Nariño's Astronomic Observatory, Alberto Quijano, told RCN Radio Sunday that he believed the object was a meteorite.

In rural areas of Santander, police received reports that the explosion had shattered windows in the area.
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Meteor

US: Did a Meteorite Smash Into a Monroe Home?

Kirsten Joyce
Q13Fox.com
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:52 UTC
Monroe Meteorite
© Q13Fox.com

A Monroe man thought his house came "under fire" but instead found what he believed to be a small meteorite stuck to the side of his house.

We checked with the experts to find out what the likelihood is of a meteorite falling to earth and wedging itself into Greg Weller's home.

Weller said he noticed the dark charcoal substance for the first time on Saturday while he was gardening. "It looked like the brick just broke off, and there was something dark underneath it."

The night before, Weller says he'd heard what he thought were gunshots outside. Once he noticed the substance he started digging around, and began to suspect something a little more "out of this world."

"I looked up some stuff about meteorites and found a magnet and stuck it to it... And they said that's a test right there. And the more I read, the more I was sure it was a meteorite."
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Meteor

Hunt for Meteorite that Could be Worth €100k

Michael Lavery
Herald.ie
Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:46 UTC
Meteorite
© ReutersValuable: The meteorite, which astronomers believe fell here, would look smooth and black.
The hunt is on for a meteorite that could be worth more than its weight in gold.

A fireball blazed across the night sky on Wednesday, leading astronomy experts to believe it came down somewhere here.

Astronomy Ireland chairman David Moore said the discovery of a meteorite would be very rare -- only three meteorites have been found in Ireland in the past 200 years.

A meteorite was last found in Ireland in 1999 when a Carlow woman found a handful of shattered meteorite pieces on a country lane near Leighlin Bridge.

The collector who bought the fragments valued them at €100,000.
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