Fireballs
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Blue meteor fireball lights up the sky over Cork, Ireland

File photo of meteor
File photo of meteor
At midnight on Thursday, while most of Cork was tucked up in bed, bright flashes of light were turning the sky overhead blue.

"We think it might have been a random fireball," David Moore, editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine, told the Irish Examiner.

"A fireball is just a piece of material burning up in the earth's atmosphere, it's just a very bright shooting star," he added.

Mr Moore said that if anyone in the south west of Ireland saw the flashes of blue light, to visit Astronomy.ie and click on the link 'Report a Fireball.'
Just saw the whole #sky light up looking North from #Cork Like #lightning only none on radar?? What gives?? #Meteor? #Fireball? #Explosion?

— Darren Forde (@darrenforde) July 21, 2016

Comment: The skies certainly seem to heating up lately, the above is the 7th fireball report within the last 5 days:




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Meteor fireball 'brighter than Venus' seen in Osaka, Japan

Fireball in Osaka, Japan
© Via Facebook/Satoshi Uehara
At 3 this morning, 25 minutes, 50 seconds of fireball.
- 5.3, etc. It was brighter than Venus around, but if the dark shadows I think I can.


Comment: Multiple sightings of a meteor fireball over Japan


Meteor

Multiple explosions from meteor fireball shake buildings in General Roca, Argentina

Stock meteor
© Arynews.tv
Residents of a city in southern Argentina got a scare when a series of powerful explosions shook homes and buildings Wednesday, but the cause turned out to be a natural wonder: a meteor disintegrating overhead.

It was an ordinary Wednesday afternoon in General Roca, a city of 85,000 people, when suddenly a series of loud blasts caused buildings to shake and windows to rattle. "Everything trembled," said Martin Soria, the local mayor.

Police, firefighters and emergency workers rushed to the scene, but found no evidence of a bomb, earthquake or calamity.

Finally, scientists pieced together the reason: A meteor had entered the Earth's atmosphere some 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) overhead, traveling at 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) per hour.

"It took everyone by surprise because it entered the atmosphere over an inhabited area. If it had fallen over the desert, the sea, Antarctica, we would never have known," said astronomer Roberto Figueroa, head of the nearby Neuquen observatory. He estimated the meteor measured about 12 meters in diameter before breaking into three fragments.

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Giant meteor fireball seen over Calabria, Sicily and Malta

File photo of meteor
File photo of meteor
A meteor passing over Calabria, Sicily and Malta in the Mediterranean was witnessed by skygazers yesterday at 11pm, as the celestial object ploughed through the summer night sky towards the southeast.

A full moon illuminated the field through which the 'white ball of fire', as some witnesses described it, tore across: the sighting comes ahead of the Delta Aquarids shower which Science Alert says will be most visible in the southern hemisphere.

While the peak for the shower will be on July 28 and 29, the display will continue until around August 23, overlapping with the Perseid shower, which occurs in mid-August.

Catching a glimpse of the Delta Aquarids will very much depend on your location, though the best time to watch the sky for these shooting stars will be around midnight.

Because meteors can be quite faint, it is best to look out for them in a dark sky, free of moonlight and artificial lights.

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Bright meteor fireball filmed over Odessa, Ukraine

Odessa, Ukraine fireball
© Via YouTube/asteroid457
Bright fireball over Odessa, July 20, 2016 filmed by amateur astronomy club Odessa city, Ukraine.


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Huge fireball seen across North Western Australia

Fireball
© Instagram/@rcadsgramA fireball is caused by a large object entering Earth's atmosphere.
People across the Kimberley have reported seeing a bright fireball streak across the sky, inspiring awe and some fear.

"It was scary, because it came from the airport direction, and then we realised that it was probably space junk or a meteor," talkback caller Monica from Broome told ABC Radio.

"We spend a lot of nights with the kids lying out on trampolines watching shooting stars, but I've never seen anything like that."

The fireball was seen across a wide area of north western Australia just before 7pm on Tuesday.

Camped by the Fitzroy River, Cybil called ABC Radio to describe the awe-inspiring sight.

"Huge, big; it was the brightest thing I've ever seen. It was huge, white, massive. I've never seen anything so big in the sky," she said

About 130km south of Broome, Randal was camped on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

"It just seemed to come right up out of the sea, and then shot right across the Barn Hill camping area where we are," he said.

"My wife was sitting opposite me and she spun around, and we watched it disappear over inland somewhere.

"It was just so, so bright. We were wondering whether one of those missiles had come down from North Korea.

"We've seen shooting stars before, but this just outdid anything."

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Great ball of fire over New Zealand

The fireball.
© Otago Times
A fireball that lit up southern skies last night was not a meteor, but something much rarer, a leading astronomer says.

Minutes after the bright orange ball flashed across the sky about 6.30pm, hundreds of people from Dunedin to Nelson took to social media to report having seen it.

Former resident superintendent of Canterbury University's Mt John Observatory Alan Gilmore said the ball of fire had all of the characteristics of a re-entry of debris from a spacecraft, or piece of equipment which had been orbiting Earth.

"It is not a meteor, I'm certain of that. It took too long to go across the sky.''

Comment: Actually, electrically charged meteors CAN travel very slowly. AND, disintegration - shedding - is quite common.


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Bright meteor fireball streaks over Brazilian skies

Bolide over Brazil
© YouTube/Bramon - Brazilian Meteor Observation Network (screen capture)
Bolide - LCS1 stations Catalan / GO and MAD2 / DF - 07/12/2016 - 03:32:00 UTC

(translated by Google)


Comment: Other meteor fireballs observed over Brazil recently include:

14 June 2016: Meteor fireball filmed over the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil

12 June 2016: Bright meteor fireball streaks over Sao Paulo, Brazil

29 & 30 May 2016: Two meteor fireballs illuminate Brazilian skies on two subsequent nights

24 May 2016: Meteor fireball filmed over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil


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Two meteorites fell at the exact same spot millions of years apart

Atlas Mountains
© Morocco World News
Rabat - Evidence found in the High Atlas Mountains suggests that two meteors fell in the exact same place, potentially millions of years apart. Seven scientists from an international team lead by a researcher at the Hassan II University in Casablanca studied the impact site and found that the impact structure is much older than the meteorite fragments found at the site.

Large meteorites are not decelerated by the atmosphere, so may create impact structures or "shatter cones" when they land. Meteorites are not usually found at impact sites because they are molten or vaporized upon impact, and they are rapidly eroded or broken down by Earth's environment.

This particular site, outside the Village of Agoudal in the High Atlas Mountains, had meteorite fragments at the site, and it was assumed that the meteorite fragments created the impact structure. The new research, which was published by Professor Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane and the research team in the science journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science on June 2016, claims that the impact structure was already present when a second meteor hit the same spot, leaving behind the fragments.

The estimated diameter of the original impact structure is between 1 and 3 km. Scientists used the average rate of erosion in the High Atlas Mountains to estimate how old the structures are. Based on how much the structure wore down over time, the impact structure is probably 1.25 to 3.75 million years old. This makes the impact structure much older than the meteorite fragments found in the same site.

Discoveries like this can help scientists better understand the impact of a meteor falling to Earth. Research will continue to determine how life in the region was affected at the time of the impact.

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Impressive meteor fireball filmed over Morocco on 8 July 2016

Fireball
Fireball recorded on 8 July 2016 over the North of Africa, at 21:05:47 UT (23:05:47 local time) by the meteor-observing stations operating in Spain in the framework of the SMART Project.

The event was brighter than the full Moon and was produced by an alpha-Capricornid meteoroid.