Fireballs
S


Fireball

Meteor shower or space junk? Geologists probe mystery of fireballs over Chile

raining fireballs
© National Park Service
When a barrage of fireballs recently rained down on Chile, many assumed it was a meteor shower and moved on. However, analysis has since dismissed that theory and experts are struggling to explain the unidentified falling objects.

The mysterious, fiery phenomena crash-landed in seven locations in Dalcahue City on the Chilean island of Chiloé late last month. They sparked a flurry of blazes which firefighters had to scramble to extinguish.

Initial news reports claimed that the fireballs were likely a meteor shower, however an analysis by geologists from Chile's National Geology and Mining Service has since found that none of the seven crash sites contained any traces of meteorite.

Fireball 4

Meteor fireball widely reported over France

Observers map of AMS event 4940-2019
© American Meteor Society (screen capture)Observers map of AMS event 4940-2019
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 246 reports about a meteor fireball seen over France (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Île-de-France, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Bretagne, Centre-Val de Loire, Grand Est, Hauts-de-France, Normandie, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie, Pays de la Loire and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) on Wednesday, October 9th 2019 around 17:47 UT.

A video of the event (4940-2019) was uploaded to the AMS website.


Fireball

Meteor fireball lights up sky across California

Fireball over California
© Twitter/Courtesy of @AardwolfEssex
California residents took to social media Monday night to report a glowing fireball across the night sky over multiple cities including Sacramento, Lynwood and San Diego.

One social media user caught a video of the fireball shooting across the sky while he was driving. (See below)

​Although unclear, the object appears to fit the description of a fireball, which is a meteor that burns as brightly as the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky, according to the American Meteor Society.

According to several reports, the annual Draconid meteor shower is expected to generate around eight shooting stars every hour starting Tuesday.

Fireball 2

Bright meteor fireball flies over northeastern Portugal

Fireball over Portugal
© SMART project
On October 3, 2019, the SMART project captured yet another fireball; this time, it flew over northeastern Portugal:
The meteor was reportedly generated from a comet that hit the atmosphere at about 230,000 km/h. It began at an altitude of about 135 km over the northeast of Portugal, and ended at a height of around 96 km over southwest of that country.

On the same day, The American Meteor Society received 18 reports of a meteor over the Netherlands. The increasing number of fireballs reported on the planet doesn't bode well for humanity. See:

Fireball 5

Rare Daytime Sextantid meteor observed over Arizona

Daytime Sextantid over Arizona
This weekend, NASA's Network of All Sky Meteor Cameras captured a rare fireball--a "Daytime Sextantid." Here it is disintegrating over Arizona just before sunrise on Saturday, Oct. 5th:

Daytime Sextantids are so rarely seen that the American Meteor Society says "spotting any [Daytime Sextantid] activity would be a notable accomplishment." Consider it noted. NASA cameras on Kitt Peak, Mount Lemmon, and Mount Hopkins caught the fireball in mid-flight, allowing a solid triangulation of its orbit and identification as a Daytime Sextantid.

Daytime Sextantids are related to the Geminid meteors of December. Both belong to the "Phaethon-Geminid Complex"--a complicated swarm of debris that includes "rock comet" 3200 Phaethon along with asteroids 1999 YC and 2005 UD. The ensemble appears to be the remains of a giant breakup of ... something ... thousands of years ago.

Comment: Two separate meteor fireball events also took place over US skies on 5th October. Over one hundred reports were sent to the American Meteor Society (AMS) for each. 4849-2019 from Florida and the Carolinas and 4848-2019 from the Ohio area.


Fireball 2

Meteor fireball (or two) blazes over Ireland - Also seen from Scotland and Wales

meteor fireball ireland
The fireball as seen from Galway, Ireland. The phone-camera's lens is facing roughly north-northeast. The trajectory appears to be from west-northwest to east-southeast.
Another big meteor fireball was seen a couple of nights ago, at around 9pm on October 4th, this time over Ireland and western parts of the UK. In fact, we're not sure that it was one solitary object.

Here's footage of a fireball that was taken in Galway in the west of Ireland:


The American Meteor Society received 19 reports of a fireball over Ireland, Scotland and Wales. AMS member 'Paul K.', also based in Galway, captured this footage of the event:


Comet 2

Cyanide gas found in interstellar object 2I/Borisov

Comet 2I/Borisov
© Universe TodayComet 2I/Borisov.
When the mysterious object known as 'Oumuamua passed Earth in October of 2017, astronomers rejoiced. In addition to being the first interstellar object detected in our Solar System, but its arrival opened our eyes to how often such events take place. Since asteroids and comets are believed to be material left over from the formation of a planetary system, it also presented an opportunity to study extrasolar systems.

Unfortunately, 'Oumuamua left our Solar System before any such studies could be conducted. Luckily, the detection of comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) this summer provided renewed opportunities to study material left by outgassing. Using data gathered by the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), an international team of astronomers found that 2I/Borisov contains cyanide. But as Douglas Adams would famously say, "Don't Panic!"

The study, which recently appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, was led by Prof. Alan Fitzsimmons of the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen's University Belfast. He was joined by members of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Institute for Astronomy, the STAR Institute, the ESA's NEO Coordination Centre, the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and multiple universities.

Nebula

Plasma? Mysterious 'fireball' that crashed in Chile was NOT meteor say scientists

Chile
© National Geology and Mining Service of Chile
Mysterious "fireball"-like objects spotted blazing through the sky over Chile were not meteors, government scientists say, in a finding sure to enthuse UFO buffs the world over.

Residents of Dalcahue, a port city on the southern island of Chiloé, took to social media last week with reports of the unidentified flying objects, some sharing photos of the phenomenon. The "fireballs" reportedly crash-landed at a number of locations around the town.

Chile's National Geology and Mining Service soon gathered scientists to investigate the strange bright objects, dispatching teams to some seven sites on Chiloé to take samples. In a statement issued over the weekend, the scientists concluded they "found no remains, vestiges or evidence of a meteorite" left behind by the "luminous and incandescent" objects.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:


Info

New evidence sheds light on Younger Dryas impact hypothesis

Comet
© Shutterstock
Just less than 13,000 years ago, the climate cooled for a short while in many parts of the world, especially in the northern hemisphere. We know this because of what has been found in ice cores drilled in Greenland, as well as from oceans around the world.

Grains of pollen from various plants can also tell us about this cooler period, which people who study climate prehistory call the Younger Dryas and which interrupted a warming trend after the last Ice Age. The term gets its name from a wildflower, Dryas octopetala. It can tolerate cold conditions and was common in parts of Europe 12,800 years ago. At about this time a number of animals became extinct. These included mammoths in Europe, large bison in North America, and giant sloths in South America.

The cause of this cooling event has been debated a great deal. One possibility, for instance, is that it relates to changes in oceanic circulation systems. In 2007 Richard Firestone and other American scientists presented a new hypothesis: that the cause was a cosmic impact like an asteroid or comet. The impact could have injected a lot of dust into the air, which might have reduced the amount of sunlight getting through the earth's atmosphere. This might have affected plant growth and animals in the food chain.

Research we have just had published sheds new light on this Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. We focus on what platinum can tell us about it.

Fireball 4

Meteor fireball seen soaring over São Paulo, Brazil

Fireball over Sao Paulo, Brazil
© AMS/Eduardo S.
On September 29, 2019, a meteor was captured by EXOSS as it flew over São Paulo, Brazil. The footage was uploaded to the American Meteor Society by 'Eduardo S':