Fireballs
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Fireball 2

Three meteor fireballs explode in the night sky over China

Tracy You
Daily Mail
Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:16 UTC
Fast and powerful: The fireball apparently overpowered the brightness of the full moon as it travelled across the sky over Yunnan Province, south-west China, at a great speed
Fast and powerful: The fireball apparently overpowered the brightness of the full moon as it travelled across the sky over Yunnan Province, south-west China, at a great speed
Residents observing the full moon in China yesterday were stunned to see three meteorites exploding in the night sky.

The giant fireballs were said to flash across the sky over Shangri-La County in Yunnan Province, south-west China.

An eyewitness told MailOnline that two of the meteorites were small and one was large. Together, they lit up the sky for around five seconds.

Various clips on the Chinese social media, including one posted by Sina, show one meteorite turning into a great ball of fire as it quickly moved across the sky.

A worker at the Desti Youth Park Hostel in Shangri-La said he and many guests at the hostel saw the burning rocks last night at around 8pm.

The worker said they were sitting in the backyard of the hostel observing the full moon to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional festival in China symbolised by the round, full moon.

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Fireball

NASA captures meteor fireball over Arizona, sonic boom picked up by seismometer

NASA Meteor Watch
Facebook
Tue, 26 Sep 2017 17:12 UTC
Fireball over Tucson, AZ
© NASA Meteor Watch
Our all sky cameras at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Mount Lemmon Observatory, and the MMT Observatory captured footage of a brilliant fireball that occurred over southern Arizona at 8:32 PM Mountain Daylight Time on September 23rd (2017 September 24 03:27 UTC).

The meteor originated 49 miles above the desert southwest of Tucson, Arizona. It travelled at about 29,300 miles per hour for 12 seconds, passing almost directly over the Tortolita suburb of Tucson, before disrupting 20 miles above the desert approximately 8 miles north of the town of Oracle, Arizona.

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Comet 2

Death from the clouds - Toxic Comets


Malaga bay
Tue, 26 Sep 2017 03:48 UTC
Cumulus Congestus
© Flickr/Kevin Dooley
Although molecular Nitrogen represents 78.09% of the air we breath this doesn't mean all substances containing Nitrogen are nice and nurturing.

In reality Nitrogen is a very curious substance that can also be very nasty.

The combination of Nitrogen and Carbon in the form of Cyanogen is very toxic.
Cyanogen is the chemical compound with the formula (CN)2.

It is a colorless, toxic gas with a pungent odor.
cyanogen
© Malaga Bay
Like other cyanides, cyanogen is very toxic, as it readily undergoes reduction to cyanide, which poisons the cytochrome c oxidase complex, thus interrupting the mitochondrial electron transfer chain.
...
Inhalation of 900 ppm over a period of 10 minutes is considered lethal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanogen
Comet Composition
© Wikipedia
Comets are very toxic because they produce cyanogen.
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Info

Meteorite impacts may have created Earth's tectonic plates

Andrew Masterson
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 25 Sep 2017 16:38 UTC
Meteorites hitting the early Earth
© Mark Stevenson/UIGAn artist’s impression of meteorites hitting the early Earth.
Meteorite impacts might have kick-started the Earth's tectonic plates and boosted the planet's magnetic field, according to a study from Australia's Macquarie University.

The research, led by Craig O'Neil from the university's Planetary Research Centre, and published in the journal Nature Geoscience, offers a scenario to illuminate what happened during the first 500 million years of the Earth's existence - a period known as the Hadean, or, more poetically, the geologic dark ages.

To date, the question of whether the young planet featured moving tectonic plates has been moot, primarily because almost nothing of its early crust remains.

Some scientists have proposed that grains of zircon, dating to before 4.1 billion years ago, are evidence of early, active tectonics. Others, however, are more convinced by geochemical data indicating that in its formative years the Earth was encased in a motionless "lid", with moving tectonic plates emerging later.

Tectonic plates were until recently thought to be unique to Earth, at least within the solar system. However, research by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2012, using satellite imagery, established that Mars also experiences plate movement, although on a smaller scale.
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Fireball 2

Fragmenting meteor fireball observed over the Netherlands


Sott.net
Fri, 22 Sep 2017 07:46 UTC
Netherlands meteor map
© AMS/google (screen capture)Observers map - Event 3301-2017
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received over 400 reports about a fireball seen over the Netherlands as well as neighbouring Belgium, France and Germany (Grand Est, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, Limburg, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Groningen, Gelderland, Vlaanderen, Zeeland, Zuid-Holland, Friesland, Flanders, Utrecht, England, Drenthe, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bruxelles, Overijssel, Niedersachsen, North Holland, Bayern, Flevoland and Île) on Thursday, September 21st 2017 around 19:01 UT.

From De Limburger, "Just after nine I saw a huge meteor above Heerlen," says Martijn Dassen. "A very fierce fireball that pulled a track behind. I did not hear any noise, but the sky lighted up. The fireball seemed to break in two before disappearing from my field of view behind the APG building."

The fragmenting meteor fireball was captured by the Leiden Observatory telescope.

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Comet 2

Unique 'ring comet' discovered by Hubble telescope


ESA/Hubble Space Telescope
Wed, 20 Sep 2017 23:47 UTC
Ring Like Comet
© ESA/Hubble
With the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a German-led group of astronomers have observed the intriguing characteristics of an unusual type of object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter: two asteroids orbiting each other and exhibiting comet-like features, including a bright coma and a long tail. This is the first known binary asteroid also classified as a comet. The research is presented in a paper published in the journal Nature today.

In September 2016, just before the asteroid 288P made its closest approach to the Sun, it was close enough to Earth to allow astronomers a detailed look at it using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope [1].

The images of 288P, which is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, revealed that it was actually not a single object, but two asteroids of almost the same mass and size, orbiting each other at a distance of about 100 kilometres. That discovery was in itself an important find; because they orbit each other, the masses of the objects in such systems can be measured.

But the observations also revealed ongoing activity in the binary system. "We detected strong indications of the sublimation of water ice due to the increased solar heating - similar to how the tail of a comet is created," explains Jessica Agarwal (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany), the team leader and main author of the research paper. This makes 288P the first known binary asteroid that is also classified as a main-belt comet.
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Fireball 4

Green meteor fireball spotted over Montgomery, Alabama

Andrew J. Yawn
Montgomery Advertiser
Tue, 19 Sep 2017 16:53 UTC
Green Meteor
© Andrew Yawn/Montgomery AdvertiserA home security system catches a glimpse of a piece of a comet that burned bright across the South Monday night.
Was it a dragon? A sign of the apocalypse? A warning shot from North Korea?

No, that bright, green fireball seen streaking over Montgomery early Tuesday morning was just your average piece of celestial space rock burning up in the atmosphere, according to Bill Cooke with the NASA Meteor Environment Office.

Cooke said the fireball was a fragment of a comet measuring about 5 to 6 inches in diameter. Igniting as it hurtled into the atmosphere about 54 miles above Highway 84 in Conecuh County, the fireball flew well over the speed limit at approximately 83,000 mph.

It was spotted by three NASA cameras located in Georgia and North Carolina at approximately 3 a.m., but perhaps the best footage was captured by one Montgomery resident's doorbell camera. Posted on Facebook Tuesday morning and shared with the Montgomery Advertiser, the video shows the comet briefly and brilliantly blazing by Alabama's capital, obviously late for something.
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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball fragments over Maryland and Pennsylvania

Mike Hankey
American Meteor Society
Sun, 17 Sep 2017 21:38 UTC
AMS Event #3210-2017
© AMSWitness Location and first estimated ground trajectory – AMS Event #3210-2017
The AMS has received over 125 reports so far about of a fireball event seen above Maryland and Pennsylvania on September 17th, 2017 around 00:59am EDT (04:59 Universal Time). The fireball was seen primarily from Maryland and Pennsylvania but was also seen from New York, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Ohio and Massachusetts.

Eight witnesses near the Mason Dixon Line reported delayed boom sounds a few moments after the fall.

AMS Operations Manager Mike Hankey has been testing a new Raspberry PI based fireball camera system in his front yard for several months and this is certainly the best fireball video he has captured to date. The camera system is comprised of 6 cameras each pointing in a different direction. The light from the fireball was actually recorded on 5 of the 6 cameras. 2 cameras with slightly overlapping fields of view directly caught the meteor.

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Fireball

Very bright daytime meteor fireball explodes over Mauritius and Reunion Island


Sott.net
Sun, 17 Sep 2017 05:52 UTC
Meteor fireball explodes over Mauritius and Reunion
© YouTube/TéléPlus (screen capture)
A very bright meteor fireball exploded over Mauritius and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean on Thursday, September 14, 2017 around 18.00 pm local time.

A facebook report said, "I saw it was in Grand Bay. A meteor that enter Mauritius skies. A like a firework in full speed at about 6: 07 pm today." Some observers say the phenomenon was accompanied by a loud noise. After fragmenting the bolide left a smoky trail.

According to Thierry, a Reunion Island resident, "I saw a kind of ball passing in the sky, it lasted about 7 seconds, with a very straight trajectory ... It was multicolored in fact, it was a large ball of mauve color, blue , with a white, yellow streak." About four minutes after seeing this phenomenon, Thierry describes hearing an explosion before experiencing a tremor.

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Comet 2

Evidence suggest a collision and several close encounters with comets in the last 2000 years


Malaga Bay
Fri, 15 Sep 2017 01:06 UTC
Comet
© NASA
If you have long suspected the mainstream is being less than honest [or simply delusional] when they describe Comets as "dirty snowballs" or [more recently] "icy dirtballs" then you might be interested to discover Close Cometary Encounters are associated with sudden spikes in the level of Thorium 232.
Cometary nuclei are composed of an amalgamation of rock, dust, water ice, and frozen gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia.

As such, they are popularly described as "dirty snowballs" after Fred Whipple's model.

However, some comets may have a higher dust content, leading them to be called "icy dirtballs".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet
Dangerous Close Cometary Encounters occur when:

a) Comets collide with the Earth.
b) Comets pass directly between the Earth and the Sun.

In the second case the alignment exposes the Earth to a potential Cometary Double-Tap whereby:

1) The "gas tail" of the Comet is delivered directly into the Earth's upper atmosphere.
2) The "dust tail" of the Comet side-swipes the Earth with a debris train.
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