Fireballs
© RIA Novosti/Aleksandr Kondratuk
Lifting of the meteorite from Lake Chebarkul in Chelyabinsk.
Lifting of the meteorite from Lake Chebarkul in Chelyabinsk.
While scientists have long confirmed that the space rock that hit Russia's Urals Mountains on February 15 is "an ordinary chondrite" (the most common type of meteorite that falls to Earth), the founder of the Church of the Chelyabinsk Meteorite believes it contains "a set of moral and legal norms that will help people live at a new stage of spiritual knowledge development."
Paranormalist Andrey Breyvichko says the meteorite, estimated at 10,000 metric tons, is so powerful it could actually trigger the Apocalypse.
The biggest of the seven major chunks that the giant rock fragmented into was discovered in the local Lake Chebarkul, forming an ice-hole 8 meters in diameter. An operation to recover it from the lake began on September 10, due to be completed by September 25. The chunk is covered by about 2.5 meters of sediments and is estimated to be 30 to 100cm long, weighing about 600kg.
© File photo
Hundreds of people saw the fireball shoot across the night sky before it exploded near their homes in Cwmbran, near Newport, South Wales.
Police and coastguards in South Wales had dozens of reports of a bright flash in the sky followed by a loud bang.
Homeowner Steve Edwards, 56, said: 'There was an enormous boom - It sounded like a bomb going off.
'The force of it shook the windows in my house, woke up my children and caused car alarms to start going off in the streets.
'I'm just glad none of it landed on my roof.'
Comment: While you are enjoying this 'wonder of nature', consider the fact that it's raining fireballs the world over:
How many falling fireballs and sun-grazing comets will it take to wake people up?
© Flickr user Iñaki Martínez de Marigorta
Star Wars Mos Espa set in Tozeur.
Star Wars Mos Espa set in Tozeur.
A space object, likely a meteorite, fell on Sunday in a rural desert area of the Tataouine governorate in southern Tunisia, not far from the filming location of the first Star Wars movie, according to local radio reports.
Witnesses, according to Radio Tataouine, say that a bright object was seen falling from the sky at around 8 p.m. and then exploded on the ground. The streaking space object was reportedly visible from the city of Tataouine, the governorate's capital.
No injuries or damages have been reported from the rural, arid area.
Comment: It's very unlikely that it struck the ground. Based on the following local news report, translated by SOTT.net, it sounds like it exploded overhead.
It did, however, alarm the Tunisian government into sending its military to the area...
Multiple deafening overhead explosions from incoming meteor shake Tunisian desert
© Unknown
Radio Tataouine has revealed information about the fall of a meteorite on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2013 at around 20.15, in southern Tunisia at the town of Remada (Tataouine governorate). The locality was visited by Marzouki [editor: the interim President of Tunesia] a few days ago!
It happened shortly after 8 pm, when the deafening noise of three explosions rocked the entire region, which lies at the heart of a military buffer area created by the army.
Residents who feared the worst, given the magnitude of the explosions, were somewhat appeased by the intervention of the armed groups and the national guard who rushed to the scene of the impact and stated that it was actually a fall from a celestial body in this uninhabited area.
There is certainly a lot going on in this declared closed area!
Comment: We'll see how "appeased" the residents are when the army shows up after the next one's shockwaves hit terra firma!
Worried residents said the blast was followed by a sheet of white light which lit up the sky.
But after spending about two hours searching the area late on Monday night, police and fire service patrols found nothing to indicate what caused the bang, which was heard as far away as Acton and is said to have been so severe that it shook buildings.
Calls from concerned residents began flooding into North Wales Police at around 10pm.
North Wales Fire and Rescue Service was also alerted and sent three crews from the Wrexham station to Pandy.
Comment: Should we be worried? NASA certainly is. Their advice?
Pray...
© Hueso/Wesley/Go/Tachikawa/Aoki/Ichimaru/Petersen
The first of these collisions was observed by A. Wesley from Australia and C. Go from Philippines on June, 3 2010. The second object was observed by three Japanese amateur observers (M. Tachikawa, K. Aoki and M. Ichimaru) on August, 20 that year and a third collision was observed by G. Hall from USA on September, 10 2012 after a report of a visual observation from D. Petersen from USA.
The first of these collisions was observed by A. Wesley from Australia and C. Go from Philippines on June, 3 2010. The second object was observed by three Japanese amateur observers (M. Tachikawa, K. Aoki and M. Ichimaru) on August, 20 that year and a third collision was observed by G. Hall from USA on September, 10 2012 after a report of a visual observation from D. Petersen from USA.
The collisions are similar but smaller in scale than the meteor explosion that occurred over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February, explained Ricardo Hueso of the University of the Basque Country in Spain. Hueso presented a detailed report of these collisions during EPSC 2013, which concluded on Friday.
Such collisions are not uncommon in the Solar System, the researchers explained. Most smaller objects such as asteroids and comets have stable orbits, but some of them travel in orbits that place them at risk of colliding with planets. The smaller the objects, the more numerous they are and the more likely they are to cause collisions.
Comment: Not necessarily. The obvious reason that no one seems to want to spell out is that more material - big and small, 'stable' and 'unstable' - has entered the inner solar system. When it comes down to it, what everyone on this planet is about to learn is that there is no such thing as 'stability' in space!
The meteor, traveling at about 76,000 mph, exploded about 25 miles above Woodstock, Alabama.
The meteor appeared at 9:18 p.m. EDT over Alabama, traveling at about 76,000 mph. It exploded 25 miles above Woodstock, Alabama, located about 30 miles from Birmingham.
"Objects of this size hit the Earth's atmosphere on a daily basis, but this one happened near Birmingham, which is a fairly decently sized city and lot of people saw it," Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, told Reuters.
Many of the more than 180 eyewitness reports came from people attending a Mumford & Sons concert in Birmingham.
"This one wasn't at 2 in the morning, so a lot of people were out and about," Cooke said.
"I saw what I first thought was a falling star and then it turned bright green," an observer from Anniston, Alabama, posted on the American Meteor Society website.
© Reuters
Professor Wickramasinghe, 74, and his team from the University of Sheffield sent a specially designed balloon into the atmoshphere during the annual Perseid meteor shower last month in August
Professor Wickramasinghe, 74, and his team from the University of Sheffield sent a specially designed balloon into the atmoshphere during the annual Perseid meteor shower last month in August
Professor Wickramasinghe, 74, and his team from the University of Sheffield sent a specially designed balloon into the atmosphere above Chester during the annual Perseid meteor shower. The balloon was carrying sterile microscope slides which were only exposed to the atmosphere at heights of 27km.
When the balloon fell back down to Earth the scientists discovered microscopic aquatic algae on the microscope slides - which they say can only be alien life forms.
Comment: Whoa, talk about 'Moses' déja vu!
Stone 'tablets' with moral laws contained in them?
Thunderbolts in the sky?
Are we witnessing the origins of religion in real-time re-formation?
This story is exactly why everyone needs to read Comets and Horns of Moses!
Celestial Intentions: Comets and the Horns of Moses