Fireballs
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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball seen over St. Louis, Missouri area Monday night

fire ball
Residents in Missouri and Illinois reported seeing a fireball streak across the sky Monday night.

According to the American Meteor Society, the fireball was seen over Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Illinois Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska and Indiana. The organization said they have received over 200 reports, including ones from Caseyville, Granite City, St. Louis, Wright City and Warrenton.

"Amazing to witness, it seemed to slowly cross the low horizon and even stutter a bit in its trajectory as it went beyond the horizon," Sally V. of Defiance, Missouri wrote on the American Meteor Society website regarding her observation.


Cassiopaea

Russian astronomer captures multiple rare atmospheric phenomena on video in 1 night - Sprites, elves, airglow and meteors

Russian astronomer captures ALL 'rare' atmospheric phenomena in 1 night - Sprites, elves, airglow, meteors, aurora
Mysterious violet ring appears in the sky over Russia.

Elves are electromagnetic pulses generated by lightning strikes. Elves is an acronym for Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations Due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources. They look like doughnut-shaped flashes that spread laterally up to 186 miles. Atmospheric research indicates the brightness of elves is closely related to the peak current in a return lightning stroke (the movement of charges from the ground to the cloud), and that elves may be the most dominant type of TLEs in the atmosphere.

Elves are very rare and undetermined atmospheric phenomena.

Comment: It wasn't so long ago that atmospheric phenomena such as these were considered a rare occurrence and so to capture just one of these events would have been considered lucky. However, as is the case with the rapid shifts we're seeing on earth below - a serious uptick in powerful earthquakes, epic flooding, gaping fissures, sinkholes, and so on - the same dramatic shifts are being reflected in the skies above:


Fireball

Meteor explosion in Michigan helps scientists detect future threats

Michigan meteor explosion
© earth.com
On January 17th of this year, bright flashes lit up the night sky above Detroit, Michigan. The flashes were the result of a meteor explosion as it disintegrated in the atmosphere. These extremely bright meteors are called bolides, and roughly 2,000 of them pass through the Earth's atmosphere each year, exploding with the force of between 0.8 and 8.1 tons of TNT. Despite the fact that thousands of these bolides are seen from Earth annually, the Michigan bolide was an especially interesting event for scientists to study.

This meteor explosion was captured by infrasonic microphones and seismometers, which gave researchers the rare opportunity to compare the data with satellite and ground camera images. A team of scientists led by Michael Hedlin of Scripps Institution of Oceanography has published a report in Seismological Research Letters in which they use this data to pinpoint the time, location, and height of the bolide disintegration, as well as calculate an approximate yield for the explosion.

Meteor

Arizona man finds meteorite in front yard after monsoon storm

Meteorite found in Glendale, AZ
Not too many people saw the flash of light streak across the night sky in the Valley on July 26, but it turns out the meteorite that fell landed right in a Valley man's yard.

According to the American Meteorite Society, only 12 people reported seeing it and one person heard a sonic boom. It came on a rainy, cloudy night with thunder and lighting, but what this one left behind has made history in Arizona.

Arizona University State Professor Laurence Garvie called it the fifth meteorite fall in Arizona and the first one in the valley.

Garvie explained that a fall occurs when witnesses see meteorites fall from the sky and the stones are then tracked to the ground. While meteorite "finds" are much more common, no one knows when the meteorites fell, they are just there.

Fireball 3

Loud explosion, bright fireball in sky mystifies Sabah, Malaysia residents

Fireball over Malaysia
© YouTube/ Suara Masyarakat Sabah
Mystery surrounded a loud booming sound that was followed by tremours seen and felt in some parts of West Coast Sabah late Monday night (Aug 20).

The incident reportedly happened at about 11.35pm, causing a stir among residents in Kota Belud, Kota Marudu, Tuaran, Sepanggar and Kota Kinabalu.

Speculation is rife on social media that the explosive sound was part of a military exercise at Paradise Camp in Kota Belud, while others associated the noise with a bright fireball seen streaking across the sky that same night.

However, Sabah Meteorological Department director Azemi Daud said it was likely that the explosion was caused by a shooting star or meteor shower, although he was unable to pinpoint the location of the incident.


Meteor

Unexplained boom rocks courthouse, homes in Gatesville, Texas

Coryell County Courthouse
© Paul J. Gately (file photo)The Coryell County Courthouse
Something exploded somewhere Friday morning that that rocked the Coryell Courthouse in Gatesville, shook homes, and broke out some windows, but authorities said Friday afternoon they have been unable to locate the source.

Some residents also reported hearing a second loud explosion at around 2:40 p.m. Friday.

"We've checked out the western part of the county, after report of second boom near Pearl. All is clear," Chief Coryell County Deputy Mark Wilcox said Friday afternoon.

The first explosion at around 9:45 a.m. Friday was felt not only in Gatesville, but for miles around the community.

"It rattled the entire shop," said resident Ronnie Bond, who lives on Powell Drive.

"It sounded like it was behind us towards the east. It was scary because it was so loud and all the neighbors ran out on the street because they were concerned, too, because of the recent tragedy," he said, referring to the explosion in June at Coryell Memorial Hospital.

Fireball 2

Very bright meteor fireball with sonic boom lights up Alabama sky

alabama meteor fireball
© NASA/MEO
NASA has released video of "a very bright" fireball that lit up the sky over Alabama just after midnight Friday morning. The official time of sighting was 12:19 a.m. CDT.

The fireball, which is NASA's word for a very bright meteor, was described as "at least 40 times as bright as the Full Moon." It was first seen 58 miles above Turkeytown, Ala. northeast of Gadsden, according to NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center.

The fireball was moving northwest at 53,700 miles per hour and fragmented about 18 miles above the small town of Grove Oak, NASA said.

"Early results indicate the (meteor) was caused by a small asteroid 6 feet in diameter," NASA said. "We are still assessing the probability of the fireball producing meteorites on the ground."

"Whether it did or not," NASA said, "it was an extremely bright event seen through partly cloudy skies and triggering every camera and sensor operated by the Meteroid Environment Office in the region."


Comment: The American Meteor Society has received 44 reports from people living in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina, with some hearing/feeling a sonic boom.

Courtesy of WRCB, additional footage of the event can be viewed here,


Attention

Loud boom reported by hundreds in Canberra, Australia remains a mystery

Mystery boom
© Fox24
"Did anyone hear that loud bang?"

It's the post that inevitably sparks sarcasm and ridicule on social media, but on Sunday night, it was instead curiosity that dominated the conversation in Canberra community Facebook groups.

Hundreds of people reported hearing what sounded like an explosion, described as "a huge echoing boom", somewhere around Holt about 9.03pm.

Many said it shook their houses, while others described seeing an orange flash at the same time and shared images from their CCTV cameras.

While there is no shortage of reports, there are so far no answers on what caused the mysterious bang.

Fireball 5

Spectacular lightshow or harbinger of doom? 5 facts about tonight's Perseid meteor shower

Perseid showers
© Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
This year's Perseid meteor shower promises to be one of the best for stargazers as a new Moon bringing darker skies means night time conditions are optimum for this potentially catastrophic cosmic event.

The trail of shooting stars created by the Swift-Tuttle comet have been active in the night sky since mid-July, however, they have been peaking since August 11 and as many 70 shooting stars per hour are expected to be visible from Earth in the early hours of Monday morning.

Here's five more facts about the Perseid meteor shower:

One of the most consistent:

The Perseid meteor shower is one of the most reliable showers year-after-year with Comet Swift-Tuttle being in orbit for thousands of years. It takes 133 years to ellipse the Sun and this is the first year it has passed into the inner solar system since 1991. The next time will be in 2126.

Comment: See also: The annual Perseids: Astronomers prepare for Earth to 'plow' into fiery meteor shower


Pills

Chronic: For big pharma, the perfect patient is wealthy, permanently ill and a daily pill-popper

Chronic
Will medicine ever recover?
Just a few years ago, infection with the hepatitis C virus guaranteed a slow and certain death for many. Available treatments were effective in about half of all patients, and the side effects could be awful. Things changed in 2014, when a new medication called Harvoni was approved to treat the infection. With cure rates approaching 99 per cent and far fewer side effects, the medication became an instant blockbuster. Sales topped $13.8 billion in 2015.

But then an odd thing happened - sales began to drop precipitously. Harvoni, in conjunction with four other hepatitis C drugs, is projected to generate only $4 billion this year, a three-fold decline in as many years. Part of this decline is due to new competitors entering the market. But according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, another reason could be that the drug's cure-rate erodes its own market.