This huge asteroid is thought to cause the beautiful Geminids meteor shower which will take place between December 13 and 14, causing hundreds of bright meteors to illuminate the night sky as they burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
It's about half the size of Chicxulub,the rock which wiped out the dinosaurs, and has a very unusual orbit which causes it to pass closer to the sun than any other named asteroid.
If you saw a vivid object race across the Jersey Shore sky early Friday evening, you're not alone.
More than 20 spotters reported seeing a fireball across portions of the Mid-Atlantic, according to a reporting log on the American Meteor Society website.
"Please tell me someone else saw the huge fireball streaking east to west across the sky south of Toms River a few minutes ago," Nick Cittadino posted on Jersey Shore Hurricane News at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
It was also spotted in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Speculation ran rife online after Inverell Times reader Lawana Hillhouse reported seeing a strange light moving over the town on Thursday night, November 23, at approximately 9.45pm.
"It was sort of round and real red," Lawana said. She watched the object, which she initially believed was a fireball, move at a medium pace towards Moree.
"I thought it was some sort of weird weather event," she said.
Meteors, ball lightning, burning space junk and even aliens were among the many possible explanations given, as the Higgins Storm Chasing website reported similar sightings across NSW between 9.30-11pm.
Locals of Breiðdalsvík in East Iceland wondered if the aliens were actually coming on Tuesday when they were surprised by strange lights shooting across the sky.
According to local paper Austurfrétt the blue-green light shot across the sky at an incredible speed. One of the witnesses was Hrafnkell Hannesson who says he was at the supermarket when the lights appeared.
Photographers and sky-watchers will be treated to an awe-inspiring celestial display in December as the Geminid meteor shower lights up Earth's atmosphere.
As our planet moves through the debris field left by the Phaethon asteroid next month, flashes and trails of light will be visible overhead - as long as the weather is clear.
A blazing object believed to be a large meteor whizzed through the night sky over Japan on Nov. 21.
It was visible for a few seconds around 9:30 p.m. and flashed with intense light a few times before vanishing, witnesses said.
The stunning display sparked an explosion of activity on social media.
"It's a fireball ... a big meteor," said Chisato Yamauchi, 43, a researcher at Misato astronomical observatory in Wakayama Prefecture, who watched video footage of the event online.
"Fragments of sand and stone moving through space lit up due to friction upon entering Earth's atmosphere," he explained.
On the night of November 19th, amateur astronomer Klaas Jobse captured a green meteor/fireball over the Dutch village of Oostkapelle.
Estimating the size of the fragment as that of a large marble, Jobse told regional broadcaster Omroep Zeeland that "such a fragment of a comet enters the atmosphere with a gigantic speed and then a spectacular reaction occurs, with this fireball as a result."
While he suspects the meteor fragment originates from the Leonids, he remarked that a great fireball such as this one is extraordinary. "It was pretty clear, so you could see it beautifully. And it was very bright. I think you can compare it with the light of a full moon. Yes, for an amateur astronomer, this is the icing on the cake."
See the footage of the fireball in the video below (00:11-00:15):
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.
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.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Good for China, because there are nothing but morons running this country: [Link]