Fireballs
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Slow-moving meteor captured over southern UK

meteor over UK
© YouTube/UKMON (screen capture)
Captured by a UK Meteor Observation Network monitoring station at Ash Vale, Surrey.


Comment: The American Meteor Society (AMS) received 46 reports about a fireball seen over England, Normandy and Wales on Sunday, October 2nd 2016 around 18:48 UT. Other reports of meteor fireballs over the UK in the last two weeks include:


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Huge meteor fireball illuminates night skies over Algeria

Algeria meteor fireball
© YouTube/zakiufo dz (screen capture)
A huge meteor passed over the north east of Algeria,at 21:22 pm yesterday , Saturday 01/10/2016.

Here is a mobile recorded video shows the fireball over Constantine.


Info

Scotland's asteroid strike

Scotland Meteor Strike
© Society for Interdisciplinary Studies
This one is geology rather than catastrophism as a geologist is at the heart of the discovery. Channel 4 Had a TV programme about it last week which you can see if you missed it at here ...(and see also here.)

Gary Gilligan is more interested in the Torridon sandstone (which subsequently filled the projected crater) as sand is a subject close to his heart (and wherever sand pops up we have to wonder about its origin). For example, sandstones occur on top of chalk geology in southern England (sometimes known as sarsen) and these too were laid down during an upheaval of some kind (during or at the end of the Palaeogene). In the Torridons we have sandstone laid down during or shortly after an asteroid strike. Thank you for the link Gary.

The projected crater site was already classified as an unconformity - it did not fit the usual pattern. There was a gravity anomaly.

This meant a closer look and now it is thought a crater exists beneath sedimentary layers such as sandstone, arkose and shale. For an insight into what these might be, see Torridonian ... Arkose ... and Shale.

Shales are composed of mud and clay particles, Arkose is a sandstone containing 25 per cent feldspar (Arkosian sand is sand rich in feldspar) and the Torridonian formation (from the Torridon Mountains) is a name for a group of sedimentary rocks in NW Scotland, such as red and brown sandstone, shales and arkoses.

The strike site is also associated with shocked quartz and by sandstone flecked with tiny fragments of green glass. The glass represents melted rock - and the heat generated was hot enough to force the glass, or melted rock, to seep into sand grains and become rock in itself, folding them in a dramatic fashion. The shale, in turn, is thought to derive from a volcanic like mud flow - induced by the strike creating a tectonic backlash or simply by the violence of the strike itself creating the mud flow. The inference is that an object hit the ground where sand and mud was a common ingredient (quite unlike the modern landscape of the region). Of course, one could conjecture the sand came out of the bowels of the earth as a result of the strike (along with the mud flow) or arrived with the asteroid (or comet).

It is interesting to see how mainstream takes onboard such catastrophic events but continues to interpret some of the geology in purely uniformitarian terms.

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Meteor over Srinagar mistaken for missile attack

Meteorite in Srinagar
© Express Photo by Shuaib MasoodiThe falling meteorite in Srinagar on Thursday.
Panic struck the people of Srinagar as a falling meteorite was confused for a missile, hours after India confirmed conducting surgical strikes along the border in Pakistan. Onlookers in the Jammu and Kashmir capital took the 'missile' as a retaliation in the aftermath of the border tension.

The Indian Army on Thursday organised surgical strikes targeting seven terror launch pads across the LoC overnight in which heliborne and ground forces were used. Addressing a press conference, DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said India inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists and those who are trying to support them.

This is latest in the string of offensives India has launched against Pakistan since four attackers killed 19 soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri when they targetted the rear office of an Indian Army infantry installation on September 18. India has resorted to several diplomatic measures and vowed to internationally isolate Pakistan ever since.

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Photographer captures image of slow-moving meteor fireball near Post Falls, Idaho

Meteor fireball
© Tiffany HansenMeteor fireball near Post Falls, Idaho
Wednesday night around 11pm FOX 28 received several reports of a bright light flashing across the sky and "loud boom." Multiple calls came into the newsroom and messages came in on our Facebook page with everyone who saw or heard it asking the same question: "What was that?"

Call it pure luck or call it talent but one Spokane photographer happened to catch the "bright flash across the sky" in a beautiful photograph. Tiffany Hansen says she loves shooting night scenes. Wednesday night, trying to photograph the aurora lights, which were happening that night as well, she stationed herself just north of Post Falls, ID but wasn't having any luck seeing them.

"I took one last shot and that's when the meteor happened. It was big, very bright and moving super slow across the sky. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I feel extremely lucky to have caught it on my camera," Hansen said.

Hansen took up photography as a hobby a few years back and has perfected her craft overtime. She especially likes landscapes and outdoor photography.

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Spectacular meteor fireball lights up the skies over southern Spain

Fireball - stock image
Stock image
The fragment of Comet Encke entered our atmosphere at 111,000 kilometres an hour

More debris from the Comet Encke is likely to head our way in the coming weeks.

Stargazers enjoyed a spectacular treat on Tuesday evening as a spectacular fireball flew over the southern half of Spain, although it could be seen from more than 400 kilometers away due to its brilliant intensity and high visibility.

The phenomenon, which was caused by fragments from Comet Encke, was recorded by the Astronomical Complex of La Hita in La Puebla de Almoradiel (Toledo), who produced the video footage shown here and the astronomical observatory at Calar Alto (Almería), La Sagra (Granada) Huelva and Seville.


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Meteor fireball filmed over central Europe - 27.09.16

meteor over central Europe
© Google Maps/AMS (screen capture)
From France to Italy: Meteor in the south over Montsevelier, Val Terbi, Jura


Comment: The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received over 35 reports of a meteor fireball observed over France, Switzerland and Germany on 27th September 2016.

NASA space data supports citizens' observations that - meteor fireball activity is increasing dramatically!


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'Lost' comet of 1915 may have been rediscovered

C/2016 R3 Borisov
© YouTube/Planetary AstronomyC/2016 R3 Borisov.
Scientists working with the Slooh observatories were able to take an image of Comet C/2016 R3, which was discovered by Russian astronomer Gennady Borisov on September 11, 2016. Since then, the comet has been too close to the sun to observe well, but Borisov and his peers think the celestial body might be one that was misplaced a century ago.

Comet C/2016 R3 was discovered by Gennady Borisov, an employee at Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow, on September 11 this year. Earlier, Borisov spotted and catalogued four comets and one asteroid. He is working with observers using the Slooh global robotic observatory network.

Borisov together with Slooh member Bernd Luetkenhoener and Slooh astronomer Paul Cox have demonstrated that Comet C/2016 R3 is moving towards the sun and will reach its perihelion on October 12.

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Meteor fireball streaks across Scotland skies

Invergowrie fireball
© Evening Telegraph
People across Tayside were speculating last night after a streak of light appeared in the sky.

Rachel Malcolm sent a picture of the bright line in the darkening night sky to the Telegraph.

She said: "Just saw this in Invergowrie. "It's like something burning up in the atmosphere."
Invergowrie fireball
© Rachel Malcolm

Dr Robert Massey, deputy executive director at the Royal Astronomical Society, said: "At first sight the trail in the image looks like a sunlit aircraft contrail — a vapour trail — set against a darkening sky. When the sun is low in the sky these stand out, and appear much more prominent than in the middle of the day.

"A meteor trail can be bright and linger, but will typically break up with the movement of air in the upper atmosphere.

"There is an outside chance this shows a trail of that kind, but to be sure, I would need to know how long the exposure was, whether there was a fast moving streak — a shooting star — before the photo was taken, and how long the trail stayed in place."

Comment: The same day, 500 miles south of Scotland, another meteor fireball was captured at dawn in south east London:

Slow-moving fireball photographed over London?


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Mysterious 'fire in the sky' captured on video over Louisiana: Plasma phenomenon?

Fireball
A light in the late night sky north of Dale Noel's home stopped him in his tracks last Sunday night.

"When I seen the light, it was like flying and the light was pulsing like it was getting brighter and brighter and brighter the further it was getting," he said.

He ran to tell his fiance he thought a plane's wing was on fire, but returned outside to an empty sky.

Then, "We both looked up in the sky and we saw the same thing. It made the same pass, so we started recording it," he said, "It was lighting up, lighting up, lighting up and then it blew up in the same spot the other one did. And then a third one came by."

Noel said, "We were just kind of freaking out, like what is this, what is this?"


Comment: And, as usual... the experts are wrong. Just because it is 'too slow' doesn't mean it cannot have been a meteor. They can and do spiral, change directions and even appear to 'halt'!