Fireballs
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Fireball

Strange orange flash sighted in Plymouth, UK skies

Stock meteor
Could their be alien activity in Plymouth? Reports of mysterious flashing lights have been seen across Plymouth's skyline recently, and no explanation can be found for it. Two days ago, a band of Plymouth residents said they saw a bright orange flash in the sky, with many puzzled by the momentary light.

Yesterday, a Plymouth retiree came forward to say she had also witnessed a white flash a few weeks ago, which radiated from the same area as the orange illumination had appeared on February 9. Jenni Robertson was driving home from Bristol when she was dazzled by a white light which lasted for a few seconds. The 66-year-old retiree was making her way back from Flyball training with her collie, Tilli, when she saw the fleeting flash just past Lee Mill on the way into Yealmpton on January 31.

The Staddiscombe resident opted to take a different route home through Lee Mill that evening to avoid roadworks on the A38 by Deep Lane, and as she was driving through a back lane, she spotted the flash to her right of her windscreen. "It was a clear night and quite cold, so I figured it couldn't have been lighting,"

Jenni said. "At around 9:30pm, I saw a huge flash in the sky on my drivers side of the van towards Ivybridge- it wasn't too high as I could see if from the window. "It was just like a speed camera going off- it lasted a couple of seconds and then it was gone again." Jenni didn't think much of the glow until witnesses came forward with claims about a similar orange flash which came from a similar direction.

Ground worker Sam Ho says he was coming out of his house in Yealmpstone Drive at 7am two days ago when he witnessed the dazzling light, as he looked in the direction of Ivybridge. Sam said the massive flash was "quite impressive" and suspects it could have been a meteorite.

Fireball 4

Bright green meteor reported above southeast Winnipeg, Canada

Meteor
© Getty Images
Astronomers believe a meteor caused a bright green flash above southeast Winnipeg.

It happened early Wednesday morning around 5:30am.

The Planetarium's Scott Young tells MyToba.ca it was probably a smaller space rock.

"I didn't see it, but based on reports it could've been caused by an object from the size of a quarter up to a basketball."

They're what cause so-called 'shooting stars.' Space is full of them.

Triangulating meteors

Young says the Manitoba Museum collects information about reported sightings.

When the object is large and many reports are collected, astronomers can use the information to triangulate the position.

"We've only had two or three objects in the last twenty years where we've gone out to do a search."

In those cases, they're referred to as fireballs or bolides.

Good luck finding one

Young says the object is usually only visible when it's still kilometres above the planet.

"It actually falls the last dozen or so kilometres without any visible trail. So the odds are, if you saw it in the sky, it didn't land near you."

Meteor

Strange light, loud boom in Queensland could have been meteorite

Fireball!
© News MailWas it a meteor that lit up Queensland?
People from across Queensland have taken to social media to describe what they say was a bright light accompanied by a boom sound. "Was rumbling for a good five minutes before I went outside," said Bundaberg's Jamie-lee Doorey.

"Was walking back from shed, heard something from the sky as I looked up something seemed to have exploded, sparks went in three different directions. "I've seen plenty shooting stars, this was not one, or it was huge. The rumbling continued for a couple of minutes, nothing since."

Margie Ryan, also from Bundaberg, said she was left puzzled by the sighting. "Was inside. Saw bright flash outside. About one minute later, heard a loud bang like a clap of thunder which shook the house a bit," she said.

"Checked the BoM, no storm, clear sky, so posted on Facebook." Gladstone's Rory Henricks said he thought he saw a plane in the sky "shooting fireworks out of its rear". He said at 9.20pm on Tuesday, he was riding from town to Calliope and about halfway saw the object for a second.

"Nothing, then several circular firework explosions in a line behind it, then nothing again," he said. "I flipped my visor up to have a look around, I saw some pilot lights but lost track of it. Was moving really fast and appeared to have jet engines under each wing. "I'm pretty cynical but if it wasn't a UFO it seems like someone was trying to appear like one."

Charlene Kelly Maree said she heard people had seen the object in Gladstone, while Carissa Less Hansen said she witnessed it. "Saw it in Maryborough, Queensland, but didn't hear the noise," she said. Dell Holdings said she saw a flash but thought it was lightening. "It woke me from my sleep, no noise," she said.

Fireball 2

Meteor sighted off the coast of San Diego

Meteor Over San Diego
© American Meteor SocietyThe American Meteor Society shows areas in Southern California where people reported seeing the meteor. The highest number of sightings are depicted in red.
A meteoroid burned up in the atmosphere early Thursday, producing a fireball that was seen by people across San Diego County, according to the American Meteor Society.

"More than 110 witnesses have reported a large blue-green fireball over Southern California on Februray 11th around 6:35am PT (14:35 UT)," the AMS says online. "The fireball was seen primarily from California but witnesses from Arizona also reported seeing the fireball."

The eyewitnesses include Francis French, education director at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. He saw the meteor while he was driving to work on state Road 94.

"The front of the light looked like the arc of a welder's torch; it was blue and incredibly bright," said Francis French, education director at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park. "And it had a yellowish tail that was very textured."

Another eyewitness, Harold McManus, said, "I was accessing Sunset Cliffs via Pt. Loma Nazarine University campus. I was on the bluffs about to climb down to the beach when I saw it. It came in from the north almost horizontal. It had a slight downward accent as it headed to the south. I was looking west over the ocean.

" It was spectacular. Bright green like a welders arc with a long tail and relatively slow moving. It fragmented into several pieces as it died. They looked like little sparks. I looked at my watch as I was going to report it to the AMS. It was 6:37. The sky was starting to get light."


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NASA unsure how close enormous asteroid 2013 TX68 will come to Earth on March 5th

Asteroid 2013 TX68
© AFP 2016/HO/NASAThis artist's rendition released 20 April, 2005 by NASA shows a massive asteroid belt in orbit around a star the same age and size as our Sun.
A sizable asteroid is set to rocket past Earth next month, and scientists, while confident it will not strike our planet, are nonetheless unsure how close it will actually come.

Discovered two years ago, near-Earth object 2013 TX68 is roughly the size of a basketball court; fairly small, as asteroids go. TX68 is locked in an orbit that brings it near our planet every few years.

The next transit is expected to occur March 5. How close will it come to Earth? Scientists aren't exactly sure.

"The variation in possible closest-approach distances is due to the wide range of possible trajectories for this object, since it was tracked for only a short time after discovery," NASA officials said in a statement released Wednesday.

While there's no risk of impact, the asteroid could come as close as 11,000 miles from Earth, or inside the orbit of many satellites. For comparison, the Moon is 238,900 miles from Earth.

On the other extreme end of the scale, TX68's transit could occur 9 million miles away.

Fireball 2

Meteor caught on camera over Saudi skies

Leonid Meteor
© Wikimedia CommonsA meteor during the peak of the 2009 Leonid Meteor Shower. The photograph shows the meteor, afterglow, and wake as distinct components.
A glowing object believed to be a large meteor was captured on camera as it crossed Saudi skies at night, a local newspaper reported on Wednesday. An eight-second YouTube film published by Sabq Arabic language daily showed the object lightened up the sky in the Northern Rafha town as it moved fast from East to North before disappearing.

The paper said many residents captured the object with their mobile phones and quoted well-known Saudi astronomer Khaled Al Zuaq as saying he believes it was a meteor.

"The object appeared to be a large meteor which was seen crossing the Saudi skies at around 10.30 pm," he said.


Igloo

Mini ice age could be unleashed by a medium-sized asteroid strike

Asteroids headed toward Earth
© ESA/P. CarrilArtist's illustration of asteroids headed toward Earth.
A strike by a medium-size asteroid could change Earth's climate dramatically for a few years, making life difficult for people around the world, a new study suggests.

Such an impact on land (as opposed to at sea) could cause average global temperatures to plunge to ice age levels and lead to steep drops in precipitation and plant productivity, among other effects, researchers said.

"These would not be pleasant times," Charles Bardeen, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said in December during a presentation at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco.

Fireball 4

Meteor fireball seen over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Meteor fireball over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
© Youtube/Bramon (screen capture)
Bramon has just released the video of the meteor that ruptured over Rio de Janeiro, in the first minutes of the 08th of February.

Rio de Janeiro meteor flight path
© JVCastroMeteoroid Flight Path
According to the reports the fireball possessed green color and shone as much as the planet Venus ending its trajectory in the sky with an explosion.


Meteor

Meteor fireball brighter than full moon filmed over United Arab Emirates

UAE fireball
© UACN
This fireball over the United Arab Emirates had similar brightness than a full moon.It was captured 06 February 2016 at 21:54:23 UT by the cameras of the UACN project.UACN

The UAE Astronomical Cameras Network (UACN) consists of sky-pointed astronomical cameras located at several locations in the United Arab Emirates, which automatically record a video file once a meteor is detected.


Fireball

Meteor fireball seen by hundreds over Denmark

 meteorite
© H. RaabPeople are encouraged to report their observations and any possible findings of a meteorite to ildkugle.dk or stjerneskud.info
Saturday night, hundreds of Danes reported the sky suddenly lit up and a loud bang followed shortly after

On Saturday night, hundreds of Danes witnessed a spectacular phenomenon as the sky suddenly lit up and a loud bang from an explosion echoed across northeastern Zealand, reports DR.

According to Johan Fynbo, a professor of astronomy at the Niels Bohr Institute, everything indicates a meteorite hit Denmark at about 10 pm.

"It must have been a relatively large meteorite. Not the size of a car, but perhaps the size of a handball," Fynbo told DR.

As a meteorite passes through the Earth's atmosphere, it burns and creates a visible flash of light in the sky. The bigger the meteorite, the stronger the light, explained Fynbo.