© American Meteor Society (screen capture)
Observers map of AMS event 4940-2019
Observers map of AMS event 4940-2019
A video of the event (4940-2019) was uploaded to the AMS website.
Fireballs
A video of the event (4940-2019) was uploaded to the AMS website.
© Twitter/Courtesy of @AardwolfEssex
One social media user caught a video of the fireball shooting across the sky while he was driving. (See below)
Although unclear, the object appears to fit the description of a fireball, which is a meteor that burns as brightly as the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
According to several reports, the annual Draconid meteor shower is expected to generate around eight shooting stars every hour starting Tuesday.
© SMART project
The meteor was reportedly generated from a comet that hit the atmosphere at about 230,000 km/h. It began at an altitude of about 135 km over the northeast of Portugal, and ended at a height of around 96 km over southwest of that country.On the same day, The American Meteor Society received 18 reports of a meteor over the Netherlands. The increasing number of fireballs reported on the planet doesn't bode well for humanity. See:
Daytime Sextantids are so rarely seen that the American Meteor Society says "spotting any [Daytime Sextantid] activity would be a notable accomplishment." Consider it noted. NASA cameras on Kitt Peak, Mount Lemmon, and Mount Hopkins caught the fireball in mid-flight, allowing a solid triangulation of its orbit and identification as a Daytime Sextantid.
Daytime Sextantids are related to the Geminid meteors of December. Both belong to the "Phaethon-Geminid Complex"--a complicated swarm of debris that includes "rock comet" 3200 Phaethon along with asteroids 1999 YC and 2005 UD. The ensemble appears to be the remains of a giant breakup of ... something ... thousands of years ago.
The fireball as seen from Galway, Ireland. The phone-camera's lens is facing roughly north-northeast. The trajectory appears to be from west-northwest to east-southeast.
Here's footage of a fireball that was taken in Galway in the west of Ireland:
The American Meteor Society received 19 reports of a fireball over Ireland, Scotland and Wales. AMS member 'Paul K.', also based in Galway, captured this footage of the event:
© Universe Today
Comet 2I/Borisov.
Comet 2I/Borisov.
Unfortunately, 'Oumuamua left our Solar System before any such studies could be conducted. Luckily, the detection of comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) this summer provided renewed opportunities to study material left by outgassing. Using data gathered by the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), an international team of astronomers found that 2I/Borisov contains cyanide. But as Douglas Adams would famously say, "Don't Panic!"
The study, which recently appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, was led by Prof. Alan Fitzsimmons of the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen's University Belfast. He was joined by members of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Institute for Astronomy, the STAR Institute, the ESA's NEO Coordination Centre, the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and multiple universities.
© National Geology and Mining Service of Chile
Residents of Dalcahue, a port city on the southern island of Chiloé, took to social media last week with reports of the unidentified flying objects, some sharing photos of the phenomenon. The "fireballs" reportedly crash-landed at a number of locations around the town.
Chile's National Geology and Mining Service soon gathered scientists to investigate the strange bright objects, dispatching teams to some seven sites on Chiloé to take samples. In a statement issued over the weekend, the scientists concluded they "found no remains, vestiges or evidence of a meteorite" left behind by the "luminous and incandescent" objects.
Comment: See also:
- What, AGAIN?! 'Looping' fireball seen in the sky over Northampton, UK
- Plasma event? Bizarre angel-like atmospheric phenomenon captured over Brazil
- Rare ball lightning caught on video in Siberian city
- Plasma event? 'Crazy sky phenomena' filmed in Raytown, Missouri
- Ball lightning phenomenon theorized to be 'photon bubble' by Russian scientist
- Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?
- Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Pierre Lescaudron
© Shutterstock
Grains of pollen from various plants can also tell us about this cooler period, which people who study climate prehistory call the Younger Dryas and which interrupted a warming trend after the last Ice Age. The term gets its name from a wildflower, Dryas octopetala. It can tolerate cold conditions and was common in parts of Europe 12,800 years ago. At about this time a number of animals became extinct. These included mammoths in Europe, large bison in North America, and giant sloths in South America.
The cause of this cooling event has been debated a great deal. One possibility, for instance, is that it relates to changes in oceanic circulation systems. In 2007 Richard Firestone and other American scientists presented a new hypothesis: that the cause was a cosmic impact like an asteroid or comet. The impact could have injected a lot of dust into the air, which might have reduced the amount of sunlight getting through the earth's atmosphere. This might have affected plant growth and animals in the food chain.
Research we have just had published sheds new light on this Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. We focus on what platinum can tell us about it.
© AMS/Eduardo S.
© YouTube/J. Prestridge
Comment: Two separate meteor fireball events also took place over US skies on 5th October. Over one hundred reports were sent to the American Meteor Society (AMS) for each. 4849-2019 from Florida and the Carolinas and 4848-2019 from the Ohio area.