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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Earth Observations _ Fireball caught on tape over Texas

Posted by: Bobby Feb 16 2009, 06:50 PM

A meteor caught on Tape over Texas on Sunday February 15, 2009
Military says not related to Satellite collision last week.
Any reports if this object made it to the ground???

I wonder how many times this happens over a year???

Here are the Links:

Houston Chronicle:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6264797.html

CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/15/texas.sky.debris/



Posted by: nprev Feb 16 2009, 07:22 PM

LOTS of spin & uncertainty over this, still; local Dallas news reported this morning that a small grass-fire broke out 100km south of town around the time the fireball was sighted as well as possible reports of multiple objects.

On second review of the video, I now think that the velocity of the fireball looks faster than the normal apparent velocity of re-entering junk. I hope that someone is doing a trajectory analysis; there sure looks like there should be something recoverable regardless of the object's nature.

Posted by: Fran Ontanaya Feb 16 2009, 07:27 PM

I read somewhere one fireball-sized meteor falls every month on average.

With so many cams everywhere these days they are recorded more often, which is really cool. I think people will start to realize now that the Earth is like a car driving behind a truck loaded with gravel --you really value having a windshield between the exterior medium and you.

Posted by: helvick Feb 16 2009, 10:00 PM

I don't think I mentioned this here but while I was on holiday in Egypt in early January and while sitting watching a (somewhat corny but nonetheless entertaining) "sound and light show" at the Temple of Karnak in Luxor there was a similar bolide that traversed a good 60 degrees of the western sky in what seemed like 10 seconds at the time but was probably closer to 2-3 seconds. It was almost identical to this fireball, didn't seem to me to be as fast as a typical meteor and noticeably flamed out right at the end. In terms of brightness it was dramatically brighter than Venus which was in more or less the same broad region of the sky at the time (near the crescent moon) so I could make a direct comparison while it happened (early evening about 7:45PM , so unusual for a meteor in my experience). I thought it was some pyrotechnic part of the show initially but the trajectory was too flat and at a suspicious angle for that and talking to others who had seen it from other parts of the town later that night it was certain that it was a meteor. I'd just taken a 30 second long exposure shot of the light show and temple and my camera was set up for a 15 second delay before its next shot so I missed what might have been a once in a lifetime shot of a really impressive meteor but in hindsight I'm just glad I saw something that impressive in the location that I did.

Comparing it to the video of this fireball - I'd say it was a bit smaller but not dramatically so and it had a much clearer tail that persisted for about 5 degrees behind it. I've seen one other large bolide before - at around midnight in August (I think) over southern Ireland sometime in the early 80's, which I seem to remember was bright enough to throw clear shadows which was extremely impressive although at the time I was too young to realize just how rare an event it was. It was definitely a major event as the local sea rescue team were alerted by a number of people who thought it was a distress flare - we found out the next day that it had been seen by many people within a range of about 60 miles of us and it finally dawned on us what it had been.

Anecdotes don't make good data or evidence but given that I've now seen two and I don't spend a lot of time staring at the sky I don't find it all hard to believe that this is a common enough event.

Posted by: nprev Feb 16 2009, 10:11 PM

What was "unusual" about this one is that it was a daylight fireball, so it was REALLY bright (at least mag -10 IMHO), there seem to have been audible sonic booms, and there are indications that there may have been multiple events. Wouldn't be surpised if many people only saw it & the putative others because of the booms.

Posted by: ilbasso Feb 17 2009, 01:16 AM

I have seen three broad-daylight bolides in my life, and my first reaction was always, "Whoa...did I really see that?" On the first occasion, my dad was riding in the car next to me. Neither of us had said a word for several minutes beforehand, and it was several minutes after the bolide that I finally said to my dad, "Did you see that meteor?" He said he had seen it too, but was afraid to say anything at the time because he thought it was some age-related eyesight impairment! The most recent one I saw from a bus window, and it was on the news later that evening. In each case, I estimate them to have been brighter than the full moon as seen in daylight, which would make them brighter than mag -12.

It's always satisfying to know that you're not hallucinating.

Posted by: Bobby Feb 20 2009, 12:10 AM

Texas meteorite hunters may have found fragments of this Fireball
20 miles west of Waco Texas. The 2 fragments were the size of pecans.
Here is the article:

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=texas-meteorite-hunters-turn-up-pos-2009-02-19

Posted by: Marz Feb 20 2009, 03:07 PM

QUOTE (Bobby @ Feb 19 2009, 06:10 PM) *
Texas meteorite hunters may have found fragments of this Fireball
20 miles west of Waco Texas. The 2 fragments were the size of pecans.


Since the frags are gray, I suppose that rules out metallic meteors, so it must be a type of chondrite? Too bad I missed the fireball, I'm only ~120km from Waco.

Posted by: PhilCo126 Feb 21 2009, 09:59 AM

Looks like all of the major meteorite hunters are on the scene right now. They arrived days ago and have property-owner permission to search the land...

Posted by: MahFL Feb 23 2009, 05:32 PM

Those two men need a good manicure !!

Posted by: tty Mar 3 2010, 06:58 PM

Another large fireball. This one over southern Norway and parts of Sweden. It probably impacted near Oslo in southern Norway. Details here (Norwegian):


http://www.bangirommet.no/pages/news/ildkule10.html


They are calling for more observations to try to pin down the impact site. I don't know if UMSF have any members in the area, but just in case....


Posted by: lacalaca85 Mar 5 2010, 08:46 PM

It's fireball season. On 28th February, an approximately -20 mg bright one was seen from Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Well, not exactly seen, as most of the area was covered with thick clouds, but the short brightening to almost daylight was noticed everywhere. The media covered it many times over the next week, asking for video tapes and such, and interviewing (almost exclusively!) astronomers. (Nice break from the hype of the upcoming elections in Hungary...)

Here is the best recording so far, couldn't find it elsewhere like youtube, only at the Hungarian TV channel RTL Klub, so ignore the talk. Except where the two experts cheer. smile.gif No meteorites found so far, most of it likely evaporated.
http://www.rtlhirek.hu/video/84397

Lower quality, only in the corner shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvJkhiUUAT8

Best part: and astrologer said, and I quote here, "examining such celestial phenomena is not part of astrology and only superstitious people think that falling stars could effect their horoscopes." blink.gif laugh.gif

Posted by: nprev Mar 6 2010, 12:13 AM

Wow!!! The (near) terminal burst looked EXTREMELY impressive! Thanks!

Posted by: imipak Mar 6 2010, 12:25 PM

Very nice - you don't need to speak Hungarian to understand the reaction of the two chaps watching the video on the laptop biggrin.gif

Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Mar 14 2010, 05:56 PM

I had an impressive fireball experience last August myself. I was in cottage country a couple hundred kilometres north of Toronto, and was pointing out the Milky Way to a couple of friends, when a very bright green fireball zipped right across the part of the sky I was pointing at. (Without missing a beat, my buddy Jack said "Do that again".)

Two days later, Jack dropped me off at the Toronto Airport so that I could meet up with an old friend from the planetary science department at University of Western Ontario. When I finally managed to find him, one of the first things he said was "Did you see the fireball?". It turned out that he was the guy in charge of determining whether a search for meteorites should be launched, and that Jack and I were the closest known witnesses. (I had planned to meet up with this guy BEFORE seeing the fireball. Talk about your mind numbing coincidences.)

Anyways, it turned out that the fireball had been caught on video, and had an estimated magnitude of -14. This surprised me, as I would have thought it was less bright than the full Moon, maybe magnitude -8 or -9.

Posted by: pjam Mar 22 2010, 03:50 PM

QUOTE (Rob Pinnegar @ Mar 14 2010, 02:26 PM) *
Anyways, it turned out that the fireball had been caught on video, and had an estimated magnitude of -14. This surprised me, as I would have thought it was less bright than the full Moon, maybe magnitude -8 or -9.


Hallo Rob and all,
That was a nice fireball that you saw! It should be noted that our mag estimate is hampered by our cameras being rather far from the Muskoka region, so your estimate may be more correct.
Check out the U Western Ontario website of the Meteor Physics Group for recent major fireball events in southern Ontario:

http://aquarid.physics.uwo.ca/

The most recent is the Grimsby event from last Sept 25. We're still doing seaching for more fragments this spring. Updates will be posted on the site!
-pjam

Posted by: DFinfrock Jul 30 2010, 02:19 AM

This isn't a current meteorite impact, but certainly recent by geologic standards. Nice study on a new crater discovered in Egypt, estimated at less than 5000 years old.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/61356/title/Hole_from_on_high

It must have made quite an impact on the ancient Egyptian civilization. Biblical plagues come to mind?

Posted by: antipode Jul 30 2010, 07:33 AM

Southwestern Egypt is pretty remote from early dynastic Egypt, even if the impact was only 5000 years ago. That's a fairly small crater too - a few tens of kilotons? I know that the climate was wetter back then, but I doubt this was seen by more than a few nomadic herders.

What a sight though (as long as you were a good few klicks away! )

P

Posted by: jasedm Jul 30 2010, 10:02 PM

The Egyptians made use of meteoritic iron too, way before the iron age kicked off.
Maybe this site was visited in the aftermath of the impact and fragments traded with the dynastic north.
Very interesting.

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