Fireballs
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Bolide lights up night sky over Dominican Republic

Bolide over Dominican Republic
© YouTube/Frankie Lucena (screen capture)
On Feb. 21st, a small space rock hit Earth's atmosphere and exploded over the Caribbean. Although the impact did not occur directly over Puerto Rico, cameras there had no trouble seeing the explosion. Frankie Lucena recorded this footage from Cabo Rojo, PR:


"The sky lit up brightly when the meteor hit," says Lucena. "The flash came from the direction of the Dominican Republic."

Indeed, he continues, "the GOES16 Group Energy Density image shows that it exploded over the Dominican Republic at 07:30 UTC (Feb. 21st):

Comment: On January 17 a meteor fireball blazed over nearby Puerto Rico in broad daylight.


Arrow Down

Miami Beach impact crater totally ignored by main stream science

If you seek an indication that something is terribly wrong with science look no further. In 2012 brave citizen of Miami Cory Boehne noted that just south of the Port of Miami ship channel, less than two miles from downtown Miami Beach in 30′ of water, was the unmistakable signature of a cosmic collision: A multi-ringed impact complex crater with a central peak.
Impact Crater_1
© NOAA
Cool. At best it is an easily accessible opportunity for complex crater research. So much easier than Greenland or the Moon.

Or, at worst, a chance to demonstrate geological forces other than impact are crafty, and conspire to produce "pseudo-craters" in order to fool pajama scientists like the Tusk.

So what do you think was the response from the scientific "community" to these compelling images? Crickets. Not a word.

Despite what appears to be a sincere attempt to bring some attention to the amazing find, and another wonderful effort by astronomer Charles P.T. O'Dale, as far as I can tell, the community of academic and research scientists in Florida and elsewhere could not get up the gas money to take a boat out there.

See if you can find a single published paper.

Yet again we learn the lesson: The closer the subject hits to home, the more verboten it becomes.

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Huge meteor fireball filmed exploding over Alberta ski resort - 2nd for the province in 10 days

fireball
© sunshinevillage
A ski resort in Banff National Park captured a massive fireball meteor burning through the sky early in the morning on Wednesday, February 19. Sunshine Village's IT team checked on their Jackrabbit chairlift camera after hearing reports of an Alberta meteor sighting. As revealed by the time mark on the footage, at around 12:16 a.m, a giant exploding meteor ripped through the sky in the north-east direction.

This isn't the first time this month that Albertans caught a fireball exploding across the sky.

Calgarians witnessed a dazzling fireball flying across the sky on Saturday, February 9, leading locals to go on social media to react to this unusual sighting in the sky.



We might have missed this week's astronomical phenomena altogether had it not been for the Jackrabbit camera situated on the ski hill's chairlift.


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Videos show meteor fireball exploding over central Mexico

Mexico meteor fireball
© webcamsdemexico.com
A meteor fireball has been reported over the State of Mexico, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Michoacán and Mexico City.


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Meteor fireball captured on camera over eastern England

Meteor fireball over eastern England
© Mark PageThe meteor was caught on camera
People in Lincolnshire were left amazed after a meteor was spotted streaking across the night sky in Lincolnshire.

The meteor was spotted by people across the county and even seen as far away as London.

The UK Meteor Network, which tracks the phenomenon in the UK, said it had received 21 reports of the fireball from people living across five counties at 9.52pm last night, Sunday, February 16.


Comment: The American Meteor Society has over 80 reports of the meteor fireball from all over the UK and even from the Netherlands.


The fireball was seen travelling from North to South and cast a bright light which motorist Mark Page, from Sleaford, caught the fireball on his dashcam while he was driving through the town last night.

Comment: Over the past month two other large meteor fireballs have been recorded over England:


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Meteor fireball seen over Malaysia and Singapore

A fiery ball of light plummets through the sky as seen from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, in a dashboard camera recording.
A fiery ball of light plummets through the sky as seen from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, in a dashboard camera recording.
Some Malaysians and Singaporeans were lucky witnesses to a rare astronomical phenomenon when they saw a fireball fly through the sky, video of which has gone viral today.

Dashcam footage of a meteor streaking through the darkness was posted to YouTube by user Violet Crystal, who wrote that it was filmed about 5am on Wednesday in Johor Bahru.

The same clip was reposted to the All Singapore Stuff Facebook page where it has been viewed more than 100,000 times and drew comments from Singaporeans who said they also saw it from places including Loyang, Bartley, and Hougang.


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Meteorite hits factory compound in Alwar, Rajasthan, India: Reports of 20-feet deep crater

Meteorite hits Alwar, Rajasthan
© TIMES NOW/YouTube
A meteor shower, that took place at 5:11 am in Itarana Industrial area in Alwar, Rajasthan was captured in videos on Tuesday. Earlier reports had suggested that the meteorite caused a 20-feet deep crater in the factory compound, however, no damage was caused to people living in the vicinity.


Comment: A local resident, Rajesh Kumar Gupta, said that he felt an explosion and after leaving his house felt a gust of strong wind, according to reports. Farmers in Fauladpur city of Shahjahanpur also saw the meteorite.

Ajay Chaudhary, a resident of Kotkasim area, said that while getting milk in the morning, there was a sudden light and rocket-like object appeared in the sky.

Sachin Bamba, chairman of astronomical organization Space India, says that it is a meteor, which has fallen on the earth.

A meteorite impacting an industrial area might be explained by the following: industrial plumes can act as electric attractors for meteorites because they rise high up in the sky and they hold an electric charge opposite to that of the space rocks.


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SOTT Focus: Coronavirus Came From Meteor Which Hit China Last Year, Claims Scientist

coronavirus
Coronavirus was carried into the Earth's atmosphere on a fragment of comet which spewed out "hundreds of trillions" of viral particles. Medics fear the disease, which can be spread before victims show any symptoms, could spark a global pandemic. The emergence of the new strain of coronavirus is thought to be the result of panspermia - infective agents in space which eventually reach the Earth's atmosphere.

Scientists have long held that viruses, bacteria and strands of DNA exists in space carried on comets and meteorites.

They can drift into the Earth's stratosphere before falling to the surface of the planet posing a risk to human health, they say.

Comment: Based on past actual pandemics such as 'the Black Death' about 600 years ago, and the 'Justinian Plague' about 600 years before that, which recorded mortality rates of up to 70% in some localities, this coronavirus is not at the level of 'global pandemic'. We will all know if or when such an event is happening...

One criticism we have of Professor Wickramasinghe's theory is that he may be reaching by trying to pin it on a specific, recent meteor event over China. That strikes us as being too linear, based on what he himself has written in the past - concerning the origins of SARS in 2003, funnily enough - about China being a catchment area for new viral material because of its proximity to the Himalayas and a zone of thin atmosphere...
In a letter to The Lancet, Wickramasinghe explains that a small amount of a virus introduced into the stratosphere could make a first tentative fallout east of the great mountain range of the Himalayas, where the stratosphere is thinnest, followed by sporadic deposits in neighboring areas. Could this explain why new strains of the influenza virus that are capable of engendering epidemics, and which are caused by radical genetic mutations, usually originate in Asia? Wickramasinghe argues that if the virus is only minimally infective, the subsequent course of its global progress will depend on stratospheric transport and mixing, leading to a fallout continuing seasonally over a few years; even if all reasonable attempts are made to contain an infective spread, the appearance of new foci almost anywhere is a possibility.
It seems more plausible to us that, because meteors can and do detonate anywhere, viruses or virus DNA they carry in their particles swirl all the way around the planet and then (tend to) settle to ground level through the 'Chinese opening'. That may only be a general rule, however, as some meteors probably do penetrate all the way through to the troposphere, and certainly some of their meteorites make it all the way to the ground.

However, the primary factor motivating our reporting on the increase in meteor events is not the risk they present from impacting the ground and causing immediate global catastrophe, which is thankfully rare on a civilizational timescale, but because of the far more potent danger they present of delivering new viruses against which there is no defense.

See also:


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Meteor fireball lights up Alberta sky

FIREBALL

'Shooting stars' are typically more of a nighttime phenomenon, but a bright flash in the sky over Alberta on Saturday might have been an unusual daytime meteor sighting.

The trail of light was captured on film by several viewers in the province, including Tim Wiebe, who found his doorbell camera spotted the streak.


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New Comet C/2020 B3 (Rankin)

MPEC 2020-C111, issued on 2020, February 06, announces the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~20) by D. Rankin in the course of the Mt. Lemmon Survey (G96), in images taken on 2020, Jan 29 with a 1.5-m reflector + 10K CCD. The new comet has been designated C/2020 B3 (Rankin).

I performed follow-up measurements of this object while it was still on the PCCP webpage. Stacking of 16 unfiltered exposures, 120 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2020, February 03.2 from X02 Telescope Live (El Sauce, Chile) through a 0.6-m f/6.5 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a compact coma about 5" in diameter slightly elongated toward PA 250.

My confirmation image (click on it for a bigger version)
Comet C/2020 B3 (Rankin)
© Remanzacco BlogspotComet C/2020 B3 (Rankin)