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Meteorite strikes mahangu field in Namibia

Helvy Shaanika
AllAfrica.com
Fri, 10 May 2013 06:39 UTC
Onesi - Thousands of people have flocked to the Omusati Region out of curiosity to view a small piece of meteorite that landed in a mahangu field in the village of Oshika, in Onesi Constituency, yesterday morning.

The incident created fear and panic among villagers who suggested the 'strange object' had something to do with the recent commotion over the 12 South African aircraft that were released after days of grounding at Ondangwa Airport. The aircraft of South African origin were grounded for several days and then sent back to South Africa, because they had no permits to use Namibian airspace.

People who came from all over the five northern regions, including the Kunene Region, flocking to Oshika, expressed fears that the tourists may have had something to do with the 'strange' object that fell in the mahangu field of Andreas Kamafo Ningilenimo.

"Maybe those people who came here with so many aircraft are responsible for this. Maybe that object is poisonous, we are scared, we won't even want to get close to it. If it is not taken away, we will not cultivate near it," said Selma Shikongo.

A piece of meteorite, the of a size of a small ball or two human fists put together made such an impact that people within a radius of over 200km were able to hear the explosive impact, feel the resulting tremor and observe the blinding light that followed as it landed.
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Fireball 2

Fireball Meteor explodes near Tokyo, Japan


Foxcrawl
Tue, 07 May 2013 15:51 UTC
A meteor exploded over Japan terrifying dozens people in the early morning of May 6, 2013. An amateur photographer captured spectacular images of the blast which were then posted on the Internet.


The space rock disintegrated in the atmosphere releasing a noisy boom over Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo. The celestial event took place at 3.58 a.m. local time and a video footage shows the meteor appearing as a fast moving fireball whose intensity gradually increases.

The first snaps were uploaded by an eyewitness on the blog Sonotaco.jp before spreading across the social networks.
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Fireball 5

Large meteor spotted in night sky in England and Wales


BBC
Wed, 08 May 2013 20:58 UTC
Meteor
© BBCThe meteor was captured on CCTV by the BBC in Cardiff.
A meteor has been spotted travelling across the night sky by people in many parts of England and Wales.

Sightings of the celestial body were reported on Twitter in areas such as Cornwall, Hampshire, Lancashire, south Wales and Worcestershire.

Suzy Buttress, of Basingstoke, described witnessing the meteor as a "once in a lifetime thing".

Space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock said the phenomenon was likely to have been debris from Halley's Comet.
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Fireball 2

Large meteor explodes in Wyoming sky

Laura Hancock
Star-Tribune
Mon, 06 May 2013 20:00 UTC
Meteor Over Wyoming
© American Meteor SocietyThe red line is the estimated trajectory of the bolide, which is a meteor that explodes in the atmosphere. The green pins indicate where the trajectory started and the red pins indicate where it ended. The human-looking icons represent each of the eight reports that the American Meteor Society received of the event. The direction of the icon represents where each person was “standing” when the bolide was spotted. .
A large meteor exploded in the sky above southern Wyoming on Sunday night and was observed from as far as 400 miles away.

Jordan Dowers of Olympia, Wash., was driving along Interstate 80 near Laramie with his father when they spotted it about 10:45 p.m.

"The first thing we noticed is the sky lit up really bright," said Dowers, 23. "At first it was, 'Where did that lightning strike come from?' Then it was much, much brighter than lightning. From the south, it was neon blue. It looked like it was going to hit the ground. Then it just disappeared."

Eight witnesses reported the event to the American Meteor Society, including people as far away as Idaho and Colorado.

Technically, the meteor is called a bolide, said society volunteer Mike Hankey, who lives in Baltimore.

Comment: And there was an earthquake around the same time/area: Earthquake Magnitude 4.2 - 28km W of Soda Springs, Idaho. Interestingly, the technical data from USGS shows a Depth of +/- 11.3km with an uncertainty of =/- 10.9km...

Also, do not confuse the fact that more fireballs events are taking place with the fact that more people are becoming aware of them. It's not that more fireballs are being observed due to more people looking out for them; more fireballs are being observed because more fireball events are happening!

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Fireball

SOTT Focus: Something impacted the fertilizer plant in West, Texas... most likely a Comet fragment!

Philipos Moustaki
Sott.net
Thu, 02 May 2013 12:51 UTC
Joe Quinn asked recently: Was the West, Texas Explosion a Meteorite Impact?

More information has come to light that suggests exactly that, and, at the very least, strengthens the idea that a 'missile' strike of some kind caused the explosion.

We now have four different video angles of the fire at the fertilizer plant.

In the first three videos, we can see the explosion that happened afterwards. In the last video, we can't see the explosion, but it gives us another vantage point of the site in flames:

Video from viewpoint #1:


Video from viewpoint #2:

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Meteorite lands on home in Wolcott, Connecticut

LeAnne Gendreau, Ryan Hanrahan and
NBC Connecticut
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:30 UTC
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A Yale expert confirmed Tuesday that an object that crashed through a house in Wolcott Friday night was a meteorite.

Larry Beck, of Williams Court in Wolcott, called police at 10:20 a.m. on Saturday and said a rock crashed through the roof of his house on Friday night and damaged the roof and copper piping, and cracked the ceiling in his kitchen.

"All the sheet rock had broken apart and it was on the floor," Beck said.

That was around the time that people from several towns along the shoreline called police and reported a loud boom that rattled windows.

Beck told police that he'd heard a loud crash and thought that a joist or rafter had broken.
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Fireball 5

Video: Suspected meteor interrupts concert in Argentina


The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:05 UTC

Video footage, captured in the early hours of Sunday morning in Argentina, showed fans watching a band.

During the concert, a bright light appeared in the sky to the right of the stage.

It started off as a small greenish glow, before becoming a larger, brighter fireball.

The suspected meteor then fell to earth, with some locals reporting that they felt the ground shake as it hit.
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Meteor

What really happened? According to "experts", fireball that fell on Dharamsala villagers not a meteorite, but explosives


The Indian Express
Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:48 UTC
The mysterious fireball, which fell in Jadrangal village here, injuring two women, was not a "meteorite", but "low intensity explosives", the state forensic experts claimed Saturday.

"It was a low intensity explosive which contained radicals of Barium Nitrate, Aluminium and Iron Oxide, normally used in incendiary projectiles," Dr Arun Sharma, Director, Himachal Pradesh Forensic Science Laboratory told reporters here.

In a first-of-its-kind incident, two women sustained minor injuries as the explosives fell from the sky on the village on March 21.

Two women were doing some household work when the fireball hit the surface and some of its parts fell on the women after splitting following which they sustained burn injuries on arms and back.

The rumours of it being a meteorite started spreading soon after the incident.
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Fireball

Large asteroid heading to Earth? Pray, says NASA!

Irene Klotz
Reuters
Wed, 20 Mar 2013 08:53 UTC
Image
© REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/HandoutThe passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 through the Earth-moon system, is depicted in this handout image from NASA.
NASA chief Charles Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City: Pray.

That's about all the United States - or anyone for that matter - could do at this point about unknown asteroids and meteors that may be on a collision course with Earth, Bolden told lawmakers at a U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee hearing on Tuesday.

An asteroid estimated to be have been about 55 feet in diameter exploded on February 15 over Chelyabinsk, Russia, generating shock waves that shattered windows and damaged buildings. More than 1,500 people were injured.

Later that day, a larger, unrelated asteroid discovered last year passed about 17,200 miles from Earth, closer than the network of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.

The events "serve as evidence that we live in an active solar system with potentially hazardous objects passing through our neighborhood with surprising frequency," said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat.

"We were fortunate that the events of last month were simply an interesting coincidence rather than a catastrophe," said Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, who called the hearing to learn what is being done and how much money is needed to better protect the planet.
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Fireball 5

Loud boom and flash of light reported in Smithtown, New York

James Brierton
SmithtownRadio.com
Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:16 UTC
Loud Boom
© SmithtownRadio.com
Emergency officials are looking into what could have caused a loud boom and flash of light around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday night. The mysterious event caused a flurry of comments on social media, including on the SmithtownRadio.com Facebook page.

SmithtownRadio.com calls into Suffolk police and other emergency officials all resulted in the same answer: no one is sure but the thought is the noise was a really loud clap of thunder with an associated lightning strike.

At 9:46 p.m., the National Weather Service issued a Special Weather Statement regarding a snow squall moving onshore near Northport. The squall - which is a quick-forming, storm cell much like a summertime pop-up thunderstorm - was expected to impact shoreline communities stretching eastward towards Port Jefferson Station. SmithtownRadio.com has received listener comments indicating the noise was heard from Kings Park to Nesconset and into Centereach.

Meteorologist Mike Leona, who is the Long Island Weather Examiner for examiner.com, posted on his Facebook page that he thought the mysterious noise was likely thunder - but he too could not say fore sure. In his post, he said lightning detectors at Sikorsky Airport in Bridgeport and Republic Airport in Farmingdale both detected activity in the area of the squall line.

Comment: At least one eyewitness has reported that the loud boom came from a meteor:

Bright blue fireball reported across several states, including loud boom above New York, 19 March 2013

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