Fireball caught on tape over Texas, Meteor and did it hit the ground??? Options

[pjam]

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

[DFinfrock]

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...le_from_on_high

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

[antipode]

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

[jasedm]

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.