Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

New Chemical Diversity Discovered in Old Meteorite

Brandon Keim
Wired
Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:04 UTC
Meteorite
© Meteorites AustraliaA piece of the Murchison meteorite.
A new analysis of an ancient meteorite that fell to Earth in 1969 reveals millions of complex compounds, underscoring the richness of our galaxy's primordial soup.

More than 200 pounds of the meteorite were recovered from its crash site in Murchison, Australia in 1969. Subsequent analysis classified it as a carbonaceous chondrite: a rock that formed in the early solar system's mix of gas and dust, floating for billions of years until finding our planet.
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Meteor

Cover-up underway following meteor strike in Hidalgo, Mexico


Inexplicata
Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:28 UTC
Image
© Inexplicata
Inexplicata recieved a message yesterday morning from Contributing Editor Ana Luisa Cid regading the collision of an unexplained object in the state of Hidalgo (central Mexico) -- initial excitement over an "extraterrestrial" event was replaced with more conservative comments about "Soviet-era space junk", "meteorites" and even "an explosion in a local mine".

News items received today read thus:
Meteorite allegedly left a hole 30 meters in diameter and caused houses and buildings to shake in five municipalities of Hidalgo and Puebla.

At 18:30 hours on Wednesday, [February 10, 2010] a light accompanied by a powerful rport caused homes and buildings to shake throughout five municipalities in [the states of] Puebla and Hidalgo. The event was attributed to a meteorite impact.
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Meteor

Ibaraki, Japan: Meteor Lights Sky


Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News
Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:59 UTC
Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan Meteor Lights Sky!

I just received a report of a fireball sighting over Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan seen at approximately 8:28pm;
"... (we) were driving near our apartment, and we saw a bright flash of light in the sky ahead of us. We are not sure what was it, but it is possible that it was a bolide. It looked like a very bright falling star.

Time: around 20:28 Japan local time
Place of observation: on Route 296, Shimotsuma City, Ibaraki Pref.
Latitude: ca. 36°10'30"N
Longitude: ca. 139°59'30"E

We were heading south-southeast on Route 296, and the light fell sightly eastwards,
low in the sky."
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Meteor

Meteorite Hits Mexico


Newsolio
Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:25 UTC
Meteorite
© Newsolio
A meteorite has smashed into the ground in Mexico, leaving a 30 meter (100 feet) wide crater, reports said.

The meteorite impact was in the Ahuazotepec Municipality in Central Mexico between the cities of Puebla and Hidalgo.

The precise impact area of the meteorite was in a relatively unpopulated area and hit around 6.30pm local time, Mexican media said.

The Ahuazotepec, Mexico meteorite impact was so massive it broke windows in homes many kilometers from the epicenter and people reported buildings swaying and mass confusion. Other reports said the Mexico meteorite impact partially damaged a road and a bridge.
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Meteor

Meteorites Common in Central Alberta

Anthony Kovats
Quebec Media Inc. Agency
Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:23 UTC
We are never alone. As mankind continues to plod its way into the stars, it's sometimes easy to forget that heavenly bodies, which blaze across the night's sky only to hammer into the earth, constantly visit us.

These visitors are meteors, the stuff of legend, fear and even faith among ancient peoples.

And those violent visits still speak to us today, not through mysticism or legend, but through science. After all, we are dealing with an extraterrestria - an untold billion-year-old chunk of rock that has been hurtling through untold reaches of space.

Amateur astronomer and author Anthony Whyte says that the exploration of space begins in our own backyard. It's an epic mystery that can fill in the missing pieces of our past and tell how the landscape was, and is, forever changed by each impact.

His new book, The Meteorites of Alberta, is a journey that delves into the history of this province and the explorers who are still peeling away the legends to find the facts.

"The more I read about this, the more and more interesting tales I discovered. I said '... it's a shame this stuff isn't more widely known."
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Meteor

Ireland: Mysterious Fireball Sighting Linked to Meteor Reports

Nuala McAloon
The Fermanagh Herald
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:48 UTC
Mystery still surrounds the reported sighting of what is thought to have been a meteor in south Fermanagh. One witness described seeing a 'fireball' lighting up the sky near Teemore last Wednesday evening - around the time that a number of similar sightings were reported in neighbouring counties in the northern half of the country.

It is the first time in 40 years that such a sighting has been made in Ireland, with only about half a dozen recorded meteorite falls in the country altogether.

The last one was in 1999, and the last one in the North was in Derry in 1969. One lady from Teemore told the Herald: "It was about 6.15pm on Wednesday evening and it wasn't fully dark. I saw the fireball from a window in the living room. It dropped a few miles from the house I'd say. At first I thought it was a small helicopter but it was more like a rocket or a flame gliding through the sky and then it disappeared into the fields a couple of miles from here in Teemore. There was no smoke or anything so I knew that nothing had crashed. It was just so unusual and it was not a rocket or a firework. It must have been about 12 to 18 inches in size."
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Meteor

US: Large White Ball With Long Tail (Fireball) Seen in Night Sky


UFOs Northwest
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:23 UTC
Posted: February 7, 2010

Date of Sighting: February 6, 2010
Time of Sighting: 10:55 PM EST
Location of Sighting: Suitland, Maryland (Near Washington, D.C.)

Description: On the night of February 6, 2010 at 10:55 PM I looked out my window in Suitland, Maryland and saw a large white ball with a long tail on it flying across the sky.

Note: Probable meteor.
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Meteor

It Came From Outer Space Too: The Canyon Diablo meteorite

Lynda La Rocca
The Pueblo Chieftain
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:01 UTC
Meteorite
© The Pueblo Chieftain
Arizona - OK, I admit it. The main attraction at Meteor Crater Natural Landmark really does look like a great big hole in the ground.

But looks, as they say, can be deceiving.

Some 50,000 years ago, a meteorite slammed into this wind-swept plateau, spewing molten fragments over the surrounding landscape and creating the world's best-preserved, and first scientifically authenticated, meteorite impact crater.

Standing on one of the crater's four outdoor observation platforms, it's difficult to imagine how a rock could have gouged out this gaping, bowl-shaped depression that measures more than 4,000 feet across and is deeper than a 60-story building is tall.
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Meteor

Geologists stumble upon meteorite-hit site in Rajasthan


Press Trust India
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:45 UTC
New Delhi - Geologists appear to have stumbled upon a meteorite-hit site in western Rajasthan after they discovered quartz-like mineral that is similar to the one found near the famous Lonar crater lake in Maharashtra. The experts from the Indian Institute of Technology- Bombay detected occurrence of stishovite mineral in magnetic particles found in MokalsarSiwana way of the Siwana volcanic province in western Rajasthan.

"Such magnetic spherules, with 57 per cent of magnetite and 37 per cent haematite and with insignificant rare earth element (REE) content have been reported recently from a wide variety of geological formations and Recent Alluvium," Prof D Chandrashekhram of IIT-Bombay told PTI over phone. The stishovite discovered in the Siwana volcanic province of western Rajasthan is somewhat similar to the Lonar crater and formed by a series of meteor or asteroid impact, he said.
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Meteor

England: Fireball sighted over Northamptonshire

Andy Mannion
UK UFO Sighting Reports
Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:30 UTC
Posted: February 5, 2010

Location of Sighting: Rothwell, Northamptonshire
Date of Sighting: 5th Feb 2010
Time: 21:00 hrs

Witness Statement: I would like to report a sighting of a fireball over my home in Rothwell Northamptonshire, I spotted this fireball around 21:00 hrs on the 5th Feb 2010. It was heading North but not sure how fast it was traveling I would say around 300mph as it looked as if it was traveling at the same speed as a plane would go. I tried to get video footage but by the time I got to my phone the fireball was going out of sight, managed to get a couple of seconds but it not brilliant.
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