Fireballs
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Fireball 5

Meteor fireball streaks over Rome, Italy

Meteo Lazio
YouTube
Mon, 15 Mar 2021 09:45 UTC
Meteor fireball over Rome
© YouTube/Meteo Lazio (screen capture)
A bolide / meteorite has been spotted on the skies of Rome on the evening of 15 March 2021. Credit: Meteo Lazio

(Translated by google).

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Fireball 4

Karma family of asteroids potential source of near-Earth asteroids

Theo Nicitopoulos
Sky & Telescope
Tue, 16 Mar 2021 16:27 UTC
New simulations have identified the Karma family of asteroids in the main belt as a potential source of near-Earth asteroids.

When asteroids in the main belt of the solar system collide, the fragments come back together to form smaller rubble-pile bodies that orbit the Sun as a "family." Under the right conditions, some of those family members can end up in near-Earth space.
Near Earth Asteroid
© NASA / JPL-CaltechThis artist's illustration shows a near-Earth asteroid passing by Earth.
In a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers simulated the orbital evolution of asteroids in the Karma family, starting with the initial family-creating impact. The results suggest that over the family's lifetime, 350 members have transferred close to Earth's orbit — and around 10 might currently be in near-Earth space right now.
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Fireball 2

Bright meteor fireball over the Mediterranean Sea (March 15)


Meteoroides.net
Mon, 15 Mar 2021 14:56 UTC
fireball
This bright meteor was recorded form Spain on 2021 March 15 at 1:51 local time (equivalent to 0:51​ universal time). It overflew the Mediterranean Sea. The bolide was generated by a rock from a comet that hit the atmosphere at about 140,000 km/h. It began at an altitude of about 111 km over the Mediterranean Sea, and ended at a height of around 59 km, after traveling about 80 km in the Earth's atmosphere.

The event was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, operated by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN), from the meteor-observing stations located at La Hita (Toledo), Calar Alto (Almería), Sierra Nevada (Granada), and Sevilla.

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Fireball

Meteor fireball seen traveling across sky over Tokyo


NHK WORLD-JAPAN
Sun, 14 Mar 2021 13:53 UTC
FIREBALL
Many people in Tokyo and surrounding areas have taken to social media to report seeing what appeared to be a fireball shooting across the night sky.

Eyewitnesses posted about the phenomenon that was observed shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday across the Kanto region, which includes Tokyo.

A video taken by an NHK camera in the capital's Shinjuku Ward shows a ball of light streaking from the upper middle of the screen to the lower left.

Another NHK camera in Tokyo's Chuo Ward captured similar footage, and the light is seen reflected on the surface of water.

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Fireball 2

Meteorite from February fireball falls to ground in Winchcombe, England

Mike Wall
Space.com
Tue, 09 Mar 2021 21:23 UTC
A chunk of the meteorite that was recovered from Winchcombe in England
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, LondonA chunk of the meteorite that was recovered from Winchcombe in England on March 1, 2021 — the first meteorite found in the United Kingdom since 1991.
A piece of the space rock that lit up skies over England on Feb. 28 has been found.

The singed hunk of asteroid was discovered in the driveway of a house in Winchcombe, a small town in the county of Gloucestershire in southwestern England. The rock, which weighs nearly 10.6 ounces (300 grams), is the first meteorite found in the UK since 1991, experts said, and the first known carbonaceous chondrite ever discovered in the country.

Carbonaceous chondrites are especially pristine and primitive meteorites that generally contain lots of organic material, including complex molecules such as amino acids. Studying carbonaceous chondrites can shed light on the early solar system and how the building blocks of life found their way to Earth, researchers say.

Such study is already under way at the Natural History Museum in London, where the meteorite now resides.

"This is really exciting. There are about 65,000 known meteorites in the entire world, and of those only 51 of them are carbonaceous chondrites that have been seen to fall like this one," Sara Russell, a meteorite scientist at the museum, said in a statement.

"It is almost mind-blowingly amazing, because we are working on the asteroid sample-return space missions Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, and this material looks exactly like the material they are collecting," Russell said. "I am just speechless with excitement."

Comment: Blazing meteor fireball observed across UK - Update: Sonic boom reported

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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball blazes over Florida


Sott.net
Tue, 09 Mar 2021 18:28 UTC
Event 1407-2021 observers map
© YouTube/AMS (screen capture)Event 1407-2021 observers map
The American Meteor Society (AMS) received 35 reports (event 1407-2021) about a meteor fireball seen over AL, FL, GA and SC on Monday, March 8th 2021 around 10:33 UT.

Two videos were uploaded to the AMS website.

Credit: RainmanWeather

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Fireball 2

Vermonters see, hear, feel meteor fireball speeding over state

Christina Guessferd
wcax.com
Mon, 08 Mar 2021 14:28 UTC
fireball
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a meteor!

You called us from all over the state Sunday evening, reporting a loud boom and a body-rattling vibration. Well, we found out you were hearing and feeling a meteor hit the atmosphere!

We caught it happen on our camera at the Burlington International Airport -- a bright fireball flying over northern Vermont around 5:40 p.m.

NASA Meteor Watch says it was moving at 47,000 miles per hour. It traveled 33 miles from above Mount Mansfield State Forest to Beach Hill near Newport, before burning up.

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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball over Sakurajima Volcano, Japan on March 3

Volcano Time-Lapse
YouTube
Wed, 03 Mar 2021 11:14 UTC
fireball
At 00:52 JST a fireball was observed on a new webcam the first night trying it out.

The time was recorded by our good friend in Japan, who in turn let me know and I found it. Please follow our pal: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD7E...

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Comet 2

New Comet C/2021 C4 (ATLAS)

Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Blogspot
Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:38 UTC
CBET 4937 & MPEC 2021-D113, issued on 2021, February 26, announce the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (magnitude ~19) on CCD images taken on Feb. 12.6 UT with a 0.5-m f/2 Schmidt reflector at Haleakala, Hawaii, in the course of the "Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System" (ATLAS) search program. This object has been found to show cometary appearance by CCD astrometrists elsewhere after the object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's PCCP webpage due to its orbit. The new comet has been designated C/2021 C4 (ATLAS).

We performed follow-up measurements of this object while it was still on the PCCP webpage.

Stacking of 5 unfiltered exposures, 90 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2021, February 22.2 from X02 (Telescope Live, Chile) through a 0.6-m f/6.5 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a compact coma about 8" arcsecond in diameter. (Observers E. Guido, M. Rocchetto, E. Bryssinck, M. Fulle, G. Milani, C. Nassef, G. Savini, A. Valvasori).

Our confirmation image (click on it for a bigger version; made with TYCHO software by D. Parrott):
C/2021 C4 Atlas
© Remanzacco Blgospot
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Fireball 2

Best of the Web: Blazing meteor fireball observed across UK - Update: Sonic boom reported

Lorna Hughes and Jonathon Manning
Wales Online
Mon, 01 Mar 2021 01:21 UTC
A large fireball was seen over the UK on Sunday night
© UK Meteor NetworkA large fireball was seen over the UK on Sunday night.
People across the UK have reported sightings of a spectacular "fireball" meteor.

The huge space object was spotted lighting up the night sky at just before 10pm on Sunday.

The UK Meteor Network, which monitors meteor sightings in Britain, said it had received hundreds of reports - with many people taking to social media to share their videos.

It said in a post on Twitter: "The reports are flooding in, 120 so far and counting. From the two videos we saw it was a slow moving meteor with clearly visible fragmentation."

Sightings of the meteor falling from the sky were reported in London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Birmingham, Bath, Liverpool and Devon and Cornwall.


Comment: The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 766 reports of the event, the most widely reported in the UK since event 5538-2017 on December 31st 2017.

Update: On 2nd March BBC News reports:
The hunt is on for meteorite fragments that are likely to have fallen to Earth over England on Sunday night.

Many people across Northern Europe saw a fireball in the sky shortly before 22:00 GMT, and the streak of light was also caught on special cameras.

Scientists think some pieces will have survived the intense heat of atmospheric entry and hit the ground.

A computer model that analysed the camera data suggests the probable site of impact is just north of Cheltenham.

UK meteorite zone
The camera data indicates a favourable fall zone
"We can track the fireball really well, but the 'black magic' starts when it goes dark - when the light goes out and it still has another 10-20km to reach the ground," explained Dr Ashley King from the UK Fireball Alliance (UKFAll) and London's Natural History Museum (NHM).

"Strong winds can blow the object off course of where you think it's going to land, and that's what we're working on now. But, yes, somewhere north of Cheltenham, out towards Stow-on-the-Wold," he told BBC News.

The fireball produced a sonic boom as it hurtled across the southern England sky. Eyewitness accounts describe the object breaking up into several defined streaks just before going dark.

Any fragments that made it to the ground will be small, smaller than an orange, say, and are likely to be dark and shiny.

Anyone who finds what they think might be a meteorite is asked to photograph it in situ, noting the GPS co-ordinates from a phone, if that's possible.

Rest of article here.
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has now received 1066 reports, which makes it the most widely reported event in the UK since their modern database system began in 1980.



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