Fireballs
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Fireball

'Oumuamua' - Definitely not your average asteroid or comet

Oumuamua
© SpaceRefOumuamua.
In October astronomers were surprised by a visitor that came racing into our Solar System from interstellar space. Now, researchers using the Gemini Observatory have determined that the first known object to graze our Solar System from beyond is similar to, but definitely not, your average asteroid or comet. "This thing is an oddball," said Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy who leads an international team studying this interstellar interloper.

Originally denoted A2017 U1, the body now goes by the Hawaiian name 'Oumuamua, in part because of its discovery by Meech's team using the Pan-STARRS1 survey telescope on Haleakala in Hawai'i. When discovered in mid-October 'Oumuamua was only about 85 times the Earth-Moon distance away and its discovery was announced in early November.

Since its discovery 'Oumuamua has faded from view. The object's rapidly increasing distance from the Earth and Sun now makes it too faint to be studied by even the largest telescopes.

"Needless to say, we dropped everything so we could quickly point the Gemini telescopes at this object immediately after its discovery," said Gemini Director Laura Ferrarese who coordinated the Gemini South observations for Meech's group.

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Fireball seen flying over Heathrow Airport, London

fireball Heathrow Airport
© IRLIVE net / YouTube
Incredible footage of a shooting star streaking across the sky and zooming past aircraft near London's Heathrow Airport has been shared on social media.

Video of the close cosmic encounter was captured by Airlive and posted Sunday. The mesmerizing meteor can be seen shooting across the sky before a low flying plane comes into view. Another aircraft can be seen coming from the opposite direction in the distance.


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Crater in Rajasthan proven to be caused by a meteorite

Ramgarh Crater
© Hindustan TimesThe Ramgarh Crater in Rajasthan’s Baran district.
For long the origin of the Ramgarh crater has been a subject of debate among researchers. While some believe that it was caused by 'meteorite impact', others are of the view that it evolved from 'tectonic' or 'structural' activity or 'magmatism'.

For years the crater - located near Ramgarh village, about 12 km east of Mangrol - has been considered as a 'meteorite impact' site, but the theory lacked unambiguous evidence. However, a study by geologist Satyanarayan Rana has found diagnostic evidence of 'meteorite impact' at the crater.

Rana, a research scholar at the department of geology, Mohanlal Sukhadia University (MSU), Udaipur, has found evidence in the form of shatter cones in sandstones, planar deformation features (PDFs) and planar fractures (parallel sets of multiple planar cracks) in quartz grains.

Shatter cones are rare geological features and are only known to form in the bedrock beneath meteorite impact craters or underground nuclear explosions. PDFs are also formed by extreme shock compressions on the scale of meteor impacts.

"This regional geological structure has invited the interest of various geologists throughout the world since its discovery and the past five decades have witnessed a number of theories on the origin of this structure, but the issue of origin remained debatable," the 33-year-old PhD researcher, who started his research in 2013 and he completed it in April this year.

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Slow-moving meteor fireball caught on camera over Florida?

Photographer Alec Paris captured still images of the fiery show, giving us a better look.
© Alec ParisPhotographer Alec Paris captured still images of the fiery show, giving us a better look.
People across Florida saw what appeared to be a large fireball lingering in the western sky Saturday night.

Many recorded the slow-falling celestial object on their phones and shared the video with FOX 13, looking for guidance on what it might have been.

FOX 13 Meteorologist Tyler Eliasen say it was possibly the setting sun hitting the contrail from a large jet just right.


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Incoming! Bright bolide explodes over northern Finland (VIDEOS)

Bolide over Finland
© YouTube/Aurora Borealis LIVE! (screen capture)
A bright bolide (extremely bright meteor) exploded over northern Finland at 18:40 on November 16, 2017, the latest of several meteor fireball events this week including France, Germany, Spain, United States, and Argentina.

The aforementioned meteor fireball that flew over Germany on Nov 14th has been confirmed as the most reported fireball event from Europe , with 1962 reports so far, since the AMS and the IMO launched the international version of the AMS fireball form.


According to local media, there were also reports of 'heavy bangs' in an area of ​​a few hundred kilometers radius. Other recent reports of 'mysterious booms' include those in Alabama, Florida, San Diego, New Jersey and British Columbia, which could be attributed to exploding space rock fragments.

Aurora Service Tours, a tourism company operating in Utsjoki, northern Finland captured the phenomena, which momentarily turned night into day, on video from a webcam that is commonly used to promote the Northern Lights. It was described as, "Huge meteor burn up. I was sat about 10 metres to the left of the camera and felt a huge shockwave. It shook the cottage."


Comment: Could these recent events be part of the Taurid meteor shower which peaked this past Saturday? According to the American Meteor Society (AMS) website:
Associated with the comet Encke, the Taurids are actually two separate showers, with a Southern and a Northern component. Both branches of the Taurids are most notable for colorful fireballs and are often responsible for an increased number of fireball reports from September through November.

The first analysis conducted by former IMO president Dr. Juergen Rendtel of the Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam from the raw data shows that the events that occurred over Arizona and France cannot be linked to the Taurids: the Arizona event was moving from North-West to South-East while the French event was moving from North-East to South-West.

However, the events over Germany and Ohio fit the Taurids direction (East->West) and the low inclination angle at the time of the sightings! Note that the East-West direction is related to the Taurids only because the fireball occurred in the local evening. Later in the night or towards the morning the direction is different, of course.
Even NASA's own space data supports citizens' recent observations, namely that meteor fireballs are increasing dramatically.

For more information on meteors, comets, Oort cloud, Electric Universe model, Nemesis - Sol's dark companion - and much more, see Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk's book, Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection.

Perhaps 'something wicked this way comes?'




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'Blue sphere with green tail' meteor fireball seen over Alsace, France

AMS event #4312-2017: Meteor fireball over France map
© AMS (screen capture)AMS event #4312-2017: Meteor fireball over France map
A "huge blue sphere" has been reported as appearing in the sky over Alsace last night, with witnesses speculating over what the object could have been.

Around 18h on Tuesday November 14, reports began emerging of a rounded, blue shape with a green tail, flying over the department and the Grand-Est region.

Reportedly larger than a star and moving too quickly to be a planet or a plane, the object left witnesses confused as to what it could be.

Commentators have suggested it was simply a form of meteor, and more precisely, a "fireball" meteor.

"It was likely a small celestial body, which travels very quickly in the Earth's atmosphere and which, on contact with the atmosphere, heats up its gases, giving this luminous trail behind it," explained Jean-Yves Marchal, scientist at the Strasbourg planetarium, speaking to French news source FranceInfo.


Comment: Other meteor fireball events between November 14 and 15, 2017 include: As well as visible celestial bodies, it is probable that space rock fragments are also exploding in the atmosphere. See also: Even NASA's own space data supports citizens' recent observations, namely the inconvenient fact that meteor fireballs are increasing dramatically.


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Another bright meteor fireball explodes over Germany (VIDEOS)

fireball over Germany AMS event # 4299-2017
© AMS (screen capture)AMS event # 4299-2017: Observers map
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received over 1500 reports of a bright meteor fireball exploding over southern Germany on Tuesday, November 14th 2017 around 16:48 UT.

The event (#4299-2017) was also observed from the neighbouring countries of Switzerland, Austria and France. One report from Sabine B. near Kempten describes the experience: "I've never seen anything like that in my life" according to Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Just over a week ago on November 6, 2017 another bright meteor fireball exploded over northern Germany.

meteor fireball over southern Germany
© AMS/S. KobsaMeteor fireball over southern Germany on November 14, 2017 as seen from Maselheim, Germany.

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Another meteor fireball blazes over California and Arizona

Meteor fireball over California
© AMS (screen capture)
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 44 reports (event 4167-2017) about a meteor fireball seen blazing over California and Arizona on Friday, November 10th 2017 around 04:38 UT. This latest event occurred just two days after another meteor fireball was recorded in the same region.


Comment: For more information check out our dedicated fireballs topic page and monthly SOTT Earth Changes Summary.

SOTT Earth Changes Summary - October 2017 : Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs


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Meteorites found from September British Columbia, Alberta fireball

Meteorites recovered from the Kootenay region, near Crawford Bay, B.C., from the bright fireball seen on September 4, 2017
© Colin Hall/CBCMeteorites recovered from the Kootenay region, near Crawford Bay, B.C., from the bright fireball seen on September 4, 2017
When cameras captured a bright meteor fireball streak across the sky over B.C. and Alberta back in September, it sparked a search for fragments of the space rock that caused it, and this search appears to have paid off!

As often as meteors streak across the night sky, and even how many times we see bright fireball meteors, it's a rare thing to actually find pieces of the meteoroid that produced the flash of light.

According to meteorite hunter Geoff Notkin, searching for meteorites after a fall was an exhausting task, involving travelling all over the area where the fireball was seen, interviewing witnesses, and compiling a trajectory for the meteoroid as it plowed through the atmosphere. Starting in 2009, this became much easier, as scientists began to explore the use of Doppler radar in picking up these objects, to determine where they fell.

Comment: See also: Large meteor fireball lights up night sky over British Columbia, Canada


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Meteor fireball observed over California, Arizona and Nevada

California meteor fireball map
© American Meteor Society (screen capture)
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 17 reports (event 4157-2017) about a meteor fireball seen over California, Arizona and Nevada on Wednesday, November 8th 2017 around 09:22 UT.


Comment: Another bright meteor fireball lit up the skies over Utah earlier today. Wayne Frunein, who captured the celestial event on his home door camera said, "Suddenly got really bright and then we saw a streak across the sky. It was bright white at first and then it burst into many colors. It was really beautiful. It was spectacular."