Fireballs
While KXAN cannot confirm the authenticity of the video below, viewers who have seen the clip say it appears to be the same meteor they saw Saturday night. The YouTube user who posted the video says it was captured using a dashcam while driving in San Antonio.
Some witnesses describe seeing two objects, and a greenish-blue tail - likely from the meteor breaking apart. Some say it appeared as bright as fireworks, briefly turning night into day.
Comment: It should be clear by now that the dramatic rise in observations of fireballs is far out of the ordinary and cannot solely be attributed to a rise in observers and their technology. See below video which has summarized some of SOTT.net's research and views on the matter:
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Warning for Earth: Comet Siding Spring's near-brush with Mars triggered 'mind blowing' meteor shower
© NASA
The comet dust also posed a much more serious threat than expected to an international fleet of spacecraft in orbit around the red planet and roving about its surface. While engineers did not think the comet posed a major hazard, the orbiters were maneuvered to put them on the far side of Mars during close approach. Just in case.
As it turned out, that was a smart decision.
"After observing the effects on Mars and how the comet dust slammed into the upper atmosphere, it makes me very happy that we decided to put our spacecraft on the other side of Mars at the peak of the dust tail passage and out of harm's way," Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA headquarters, told reporters during a teleconference. "I really believe that hiding them like that really saved them, and it gave us a fabulous opportunity to make these observations."
Comment: If NASA et al had been paying even the slightest attention to what is happening here on Earth, rather than guess-timating with their fancy gadgets what might have happened on Mars, they'd realize they have plenty of real-life exploding comet fragments and comet dust to analyze right here at home.
Check out the astonishing afterglow caused by this exploding meteor over Recife, Brazil last month:
Meteor fireball sets the sky on fire over Recife, Brazil
Experts say it was probably a "fireball" meteor - a piece of an asteroid that ignites upon entering Earth's atmosphere - and any surviving fragments mostly likely ended up in the sea.
A remote controlled camera at Fukuoka airport recorded an object emitting a strong green light, while another camera at Hakata port showed a faint orange light.
© American Meteorological Society
Map of meteor sightings on Monday evening, Nov. 3, 2014
Map of meteor sightings on Monday evening, Nov. 3, 2014
"AMS received 89 reports about this fireball seen over GA, IN, KY, MD, NC, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA and WV on November 3rd 2014," AMS wrote on its website. Steve Sobel captured a fireball on video over Chicago around 6:25 p.m. CT, an hour after similar reports in North Carolina and other states. It remains unclear if the sighting is related to similar sightings on the East Coast.
A time-lapse video taken of the night sky over South Dakota shows a meteor exploding on impact with the earth's atmosphere. The video, taken by photographer Wes Eisenhauer on Oct. 16 outside the city of Custer, shows the meteor impacting the atmosphere at an estimated 180,000 mph and exploding into a circle of light.
© AMSMeteors.com
Nearly 200 reports of a fireball streaking overhead were received the the American Meteor Society Monday night.
Nearly 200 reports of a fireball streaking overhead were received the the American Meteor Society Monday night.
As of 11:00 Monday night, the American Meteor Society said they had received nearly 200 reports of one or more meteors crossing the skies at about 6:20 p.m. Monday.
The reports came from Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The five reports from Georgia included one each in Rossville, Statesboro, Homer, Doraville and Alpharetta.
Most of the reports said the fireball was a greenish-to-white color as it crossed the sky.
11Alive's Greensboro sister station WFMY received a number of reports from viewers in their area.
Comment: There was another fireball seen over Chicago just one hour later:
...and another in Japan on the same day:
© WJLA file photo
A meteor streaks across the night sky.
A meteor streaks across the night sky.
WNEW received a call from a listener around 6:20 p.m. who said he saw what appeared to be a green and blue light larger than a shooting star cross the sky near I-66 W. He says it fell straight down and he was unsure at first if it was a plane that crashed.
Soon after the call, people in other parts of Va. and across the U.S. took to Twitter to describe their own meteor sightings.
© Reuters/NASA
An automatic telescope installed in Russia's Caucasus Mountains, near the city of Kislovodsk, first spotted the newly discovered space rock, dubbed 2014 UR116. The asteroid is estimated to be 370 meters in diameter, which is bigger than the size of the notorious Apophis asteroid.
Once Russian astronomers saw the new space object, they passed the data to colleagues at the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. That means many observatories around the world closely scrutinized 2014 UR116, which helped to calculate the object's preliminary orbit.
2014 UR116's orbit is fluctuating because it also passes close to Venus and Mars, and the gravitational pull of these planets can also influence the asteroid's trajectory.
When a meteorite exploded in the skies above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013, the energy of the explosion was estimated to be equivalent to 300-500 kilotons of TNT. But the Chelyabinsk meteorite was relatively small, about 17 meters in diameter and it disintegrated with a blast at an altitude of over 20 kilometers.
© Jason Reed/YouTube
The sighting came as the Earth passed through the debris cloud from Halley's Comet, which produces the annual Orionid meteor shower.
Bill Cooke of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, told ABC News there were "several bright Orionids last night, as well as a spectacular fireball over middle Tennessee" that he said broke apart at 24 miles altitude just south of Nashville.
Comment: Another possible angle of same fireball:
Comment: See also:
Video of huge fireball meteor streaking over Eastern U.S. states
It should be clear by now that the dramatic rise in observations of meteor fireballs is out of the ordinary and cannot solely be attributed to a rise in cam-phones and dash-cams. Something wicked this way comes...