Fireballs
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Comet 2

Meteorite impacts in ancient oceans may have formed DNA building blocks


Science Daily
Tue, 18 Aug 2015 00:00 UTC
nucleobases, meteorite impacts
© Dr. Yoshihiro FurukawaThese are chematics of nucleobases formation by meteorite impact on earth.
A new study shown that meteorite impacts on ancient oceans may have created nucleobases and amino acids. Researchers from Tohoku University, National Institute for Materials Science and Hiroshima University discovered this after conducting impact experiments simulating a meteorite hitting an ancient ocean.

With precise analysis of the products recovered after impacts, the team found the formation of nucleobases and amino acids from inorganic compounds. The research is reported this week in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Comment: With the increased frequency of meteors entering our atmosphere in recent years, one might wonder what they might be bringing with them, and the effects on earth of their overhead airbursts and impacts.

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Question

Could a meteorite have started the fire in Portland, Oregon man's front yard?


KATU.com
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 12:31 UTC
Oregon meteor
Patrick Story says the burned patch in the front yard of his Southeast Portland home lines up with a singed portion of a nearby bush.
A Southeast Portland man thinks a meteor might have caused a mystery fire in his front yard.

Patrick Story says he heard a loud boom outside his house on Wednesday night, coupled with a flash of light.

When he went outside, he found part of his front yard on fire in the shape of a circle.

Firefighters told him the fire was "naturally-caused," however they couldn't find any fragments. Story thinks it was a fallen meteorite.

"Because the bush was set on fire, you can kind of think there was a trajectory of something flying through the air," said Story. "Since it was the night of the Perseid Meteor Shower... you got to wonder."

Comment: This is a sad display of what a scientist thinks about meteors. Hopefully this is not representative of the profession in general. Yes, space is cold, yet how can a scientist given the recent well publicized meteor over Chelyabinsk, Russia and the many examples of meteors entering the atmosphere, burning up and exploding come to the conclusion that "they're simply too cold" in all instances? From an expert in the field, mind-boggling!

Pray tell, how did this meteor, which was obviously larger than a bb, light up the sky on Wednesday night during the Perseid shower?

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Fireball 2

Fireball lights up the sky over London, Ontario

Sean Davidson
toronto.ctvnews.ca
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 18:22 UTC
Image
© Western UniversityThis photo shows a fireball shooting over London, Ont. on Aug 12.
Video released by Western University shows a bright fireball that quickly lit up the sky over London, Ont., on Wednesday night during a Perseid event.

According to Peter Brown, a professor with the department of physics and astronomy at Western University, the fireball was travelling at around 60 km per second.

Brown says the object was only about the size of a loonie but because of its immense speed, it was visible with the naked eye from Earth for about 1.5 seconds.

"At this speed, the fireball has the same amount of energy as 400 times its weight in dynamite," Brown said.

"The fireball was bright, much brighter than Venus and any other object in the sky. It was comparable to a half moon," Brown added.
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Fireball 2

Nasa video of Perseid fireball over New Mexico

Kiran Moodley
The Independent, UK
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 17:15 UTC
Image
Perseid fireball over the skies of New Mexico
Video observed by the Nasa All Sky Fireball Network shows the Perseid fireball over the skies of New Mexico on the morning of August 12.

August 12 and 13 were the two days when the Perseid shower was set to peak, with a huge array of meteors visible. The meteor shower was not just visible in the US but across the world, including the UK, with stargzers in the Midlands and the North having the best view of the meteors as cloud cover meant visibility was limited across southern England and Scotland.

The Perseids this year coincided with a new moon - for the first time since 2007 - creating the ideal dark sky conditions.

The meteors reached their peak on Wednesday and Thursday night when over 100 per hour were produced.

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Fireball

Meteor fireball blazes through Chilean sky (VIDEOS)


Elepicentro.cl
Wed, 12 Aug 2015 18:52 UTC
This fireball was filmed in Antofagasta's sky, in Chile, yesterday, Tuesday 21th, 2015.

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Fireball 2

Loud explosion and large glowing object in the sky reported from Tamworth, Australia

Anna Moulder
blogs.abc.net.au
Tue, 11 Aug 2015 15:22 UTC
Image
City of Tamworth NSW, Australia
This morning, local Tamworth police took a number of phone calls reporting an explosion, houses shuddering and they posted the following on the Oxley Local Area Command Facebook Page:

"About 1.30 am on Tuesday 11th August 2015 Police received numerous calls from Tamworth residents in relation to a loud explosion heard in many different parts of Tamworth. Residents reported their houses seemed to shake with the noise. No-one was able to accurately describe a location for the explosion. No reports of fire were received. Police patrolled several areas of Tamworth in response to these calls however no damage was located.
The mystery appeared solved about 30 minutes later when a local taxi driver contacted Police and reported sighting a large glowing object in the sky trailing a green tail fall to earth somewhere to the south of Tamworth City. At this time, it is believed the explosion can be attributed to the unknown falling object, possibly a meteorite."

Intrigued, I sent this to our resident astronomer Astro Dave Reneke. He knew exactly what this was, a sonic boom, the result of a fireball from a meteor shower... quite rare, listen to the explanation here: Astro Dave with Anna Moulder on ABC NENW Breakfast
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Fireball 3

Bright flashes seen in the sky and loud bangs heard in Bundaberg, Australia

Crystal Jones
The Bundaberg NewsMail
Wed, 05 Aug 2015 16:49 UTC
Image
© Wikimedia Commons Bundaberg
Police don't know what it was, and neither do Bundaberg's firies.

But Elizabeth Ottoway says something caused her house to shake at about 8.30 Tuesday night.

Ms Ottoway said she was waiting for a friend to come over when she heard a bang.

"It sounded like it could have been something big," she said.

"It shook my house.

"It was like a dull thump."

The West Bundaberg mum said she then saw what looked like a "huge fire" that looked like it was coming from town.

"I'm not sure if it goes hand-in-hand or if it was sugar cane burning or smoke from the sugar mill," she said.
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Fireball 4

Tracking a mysterious group of asteroid outcasts

Klaus Schmidt
Space Fellowship.com
Tue, 04 Aug 2015 05:47 UTC
High above the plane of our solar system, near the asteroid-rich abyss between Mars and Jupiter, scientists have found a unique family of space rocks. These interplanetary oddballs are the Euphrosyne (pronounced you-FROH-seh-nee) asteroids, and by any measure they have been distant, dark and mysterious — until now.

Distributed at the outer edge of the asteroid belt, the Euphrosynes have an unusual orbital path that juts well above the ecliptic, the equator of the solar system. The asteroid after which they are named, Euphrosyne — for an ancient Greek goddess of mirth — is about 156 miles (260 kilometers) across and is one of the 10 largest asteroids in the main belt. Current-day Euphrosyne is thought to be a remnant of a massive collision about 700 million years ago that formed the family of smaller asteroids bearing its name. Scientists think this event was one of the last great collisions in the solar system.
Euphrosyne
© Space Fellowship.comThe asteroid Euphrosyne glides across a field of background stars in this time-lapse view from NASA's WISE spacecraft.
A new study conducted by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, used the agency's orbiting Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) telescope to look at these unusual asteroids to learn more about Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, and their potential threat to Earth.

NEOs are bodies whose orbits around the sun approach the orbit of Earth; this population is short-lived on astronomical timescales and is fed by other reservoirs of bodies in our solar system. As they orbit the sun, NEOs can occasionally have close approaches to Earth. For this reason alone — the safety of our home planet — the study of such objects is important.
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Fireball

Meteor explosion caught on camera in Santa Cruz, California

Marc Donahoe
You Tube
Mon, 27 Jul 2015 23:01 UTC
Image
While shooting some timelapses, we saw a huge bright flash in the sky. It even lit up the entire ground. We looked up and saw a huge streak across the sky of burning dust.

I did the calculations and the dust fell from the sky for at least 50 frames of my timelapse. Each exposure was 15 seconds long, so that means the burning dust fell for 12.5 minutes. CRAZY!!! This was shot at Shark Fin Cove just north of Santa Cruz on July 21st, 2015 by @PermaGrinFilms.

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Fireball 4

Meteor captured streaking through Jervis Bay sky, Australia

Robert Crawford
Illawarra Mercury
Mon, 03 Aug 2015 07:30 UTC
Meteor
© Maree CloutIt’s not every day you get to see, let alone photograph, bioluminescence and then throw a meteor into the equation. But that is what Vincentia photographer Maree Clout has managed to capture.
Up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's a meteor.

And let's just throw in a bit of bioluminescence for good measure.

That's exactly what Vincentia photographer Maree Clout managed to capture at Jervis Bay last Wednesday night.

Along with Corinne Le Gall, whose superb photograph of bioluminescence on display in Jervis Bay featured in Wednesday's South Coast Register, Ms Clout spent three nights last week trying to capture the natural phenomenon.

During one of her 15-second exposures Ms Clout also managed to capture a meteor among the star laden night sky.
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