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ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

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Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#41
post #33

I happened to be up watching the Super Bowl in the UK, saw the ESA tweet across my timeline and was able to pop outside to see it at the time they predicted - was also able to grab a video [0]. So cool to see how far our detection of these objects is coming along, especially for something as small as this was. [0] https://twitter.com/teh_c/status/1624967399131824130

Would you be willing to share your exact location, perhaps in an email to sar2667observation@lgms.nl? From a sibling comment:

> Got so lucky finding that Brighton video as the 2nd result earlier. Spent another 15 minutes looking for a third angle but the "looking east", "looking south" indicated angles are either implausible or too inaccurate to be useful. A Paris video is of such quality that I couldn't for the life of me find out which buildings are in view to map it to an angle.

There is a building visible in your video, so with that info I could figure out the angle to get a third line. I currently have these two: https://snipboard.io/rBNozt.jpg

Or if someone simply knows where to find someone who has a calibrated observation with range finder, I'd also be happy to find the location that way :D somehow I'm having a lot of trouble finding any information about this stone.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#42
post #21

Wow!! From just east of Aachen, perfectly visible. Turning from a point of light coming down into a "oh wow that's really cool" into an actual fireball at >400 km horizontal distance! Holy crap that was exhilarating Edit: I was expecting that it would be too far away, also with Aachen's city glow and the highway, that nothing would be visible, or at best, a point appearing and disappearing at basically the same locat…

Thank you for the great video. Works by default on my iPhone 14 in Safari.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#43

why are these events always forecasted so late? some hours earlier i could have witnessed it

It's amazing it's forecast at all. As ESA writes:

> This is just the seventh time an #asteroidimpact has ever been predicted before it happens - a sign of the rapid advancements in global asteroid detection capabilities!

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#44
post #21

Wow!! From just east of Aachen, perfectly visible. Turning from a point of light coming down into a "oh wow that's really cool" into an actual fireball at >400 km horizontal distance! Holy crap that was exhilarating Edit: I was expecting that it would be too far away, also with Aachen's city glow and the highway, that nothing would be visible, or at best, a point appearing and disappearing at basically the same locat…

I used to do some astrophotography and I won't ever forget watching one night during the Perseids as a massive fireball streamed across the sky, completely unexpected, the thing was in the sky for a proper 2-3 seconds. I remember being freezing that night, and it was about a 1 hour drive to get to the location, absolutely worth it though!

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#45
post #44
post #21

Wow!! From just east of Aachen, perfectly visible. Turning from a point of light coming down into a "oh wow that's really cool" into an actual fireball at >400 km horizontal distance! Holy crap that was exhilarating Edit: I was expecting that it would be too far away, also with Aachen's city glow and the highway, that nothing would be visible, or at best, a point appearing and disappearing at basically the same locat…

I used to do some astrophotography and I won't ever forget watching one night during the Perseids as a massive fireball streamed across the sky, completely unexpected, the thing was in the sky for a proper 2-3 seconds. I remember being freezing that night, and it was about a 1 hour drive to get to the location, absolutely worth it though!

I still do astrophotography - but nothing will ever top the broad daylight bolide I saw over France 30 years ago aged 10 or so - huge blue fireball labouring its way across the sky before disintegrating in an explosion as bright as the sun. I actually dropped to my knees in awe, the garbage I was carrying utterly forgotten.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do some astrophotography and I won't ever forget watching one night during the Perseids as a massive fireball streamed across the sky, completely unexpected, the thing was in the sky for a proper 2-3 seconds. I remember being freezing that night, and it was about a 1 hour drive to get to the location, absolutely worth it though!

I still do astrophotography - but nothing will ever top the broad daylight bolide I saw over France 30 years ago aged 10 or so - huge blue fireball labouring its way across the sky before disintegrating in an explosion as bright as the sun. I actually dropped to my knees in awe, the garbage I was carrying utterly forgotten.

Can I recommend:

Desert Fireball Network (Curtin University)

http://fireballsinthesky.com.au/

https://gfo.rocks/blog.html

    One way amateurs can help is by setting up a meteor detection system and engaging in a little citizen science. A few years ago this was an expensive task, but now with a Raspberry Pi and some simple electronic parts it’s much easier.
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/diy/raspberry-pi-m...

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#47

That's a meteor. Meteorites are different - they're the ones that hit the dirt.

If we're going to be pedantic, it's actually a meteoroid. Meteoroid is the object, meteor is what happens when it hits the atmosphere, and meteorite is when it has hit the ground.

I found Wiktionary the most helpful:

Usage notes Meteor (streak of light in night sky): Not to be confused with meteoroid and meteorite (cause and remains of a meteor), or asteroid and comet (celestial bodies).

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#48
post #21

Wow!! From just east of Aachen, perfectly visible. Turning from a point of light coming down into a "oh wow that's really cool" into an actual fireball at >400 km horizontal distance! Holy crap that was exhilarating Edit: I was expecting that it would be too far away, also with Aachen's city glow and the highway, that nothing would be visible, or at best, a point appearing and disappearing at basically the same locat…

> Holy crap that was exhilarating

A perfect occasion to... laachen?

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#49
post #21

Wow!! From just east of Aachen, perfectly visible. Turning from a point of light coming down into a "oh wow that's really cool" into an actual fireball at >400 km horizontal distance! Holy crap that was exhilarating Edit: I was expecting that it would be too far away, also with Aachen's city glow and the highway, that nothing would be visible, or at best, a point appearing and disappearing at basically the same locat…

> Holy crap that was exhilarating A perfect occasion to... laachen?

> exhilarating - causing strong feelings of happy excitement and elation

TIL that refers specifically to feelings that would cause laughing. Took me a while to get your pun, also because (to this dutchman) aachen is two sounds removed from lachen and not one like it might be for a german (where they hardly differentiate between short a and long aa).

I find it hard to describe feelings (in any language), maybe "shocking" is a better word than exhilarating? But that sounds more negative than I mean it. The german word that comes to mind (I hardly speak german so this might be far off) is aufregend which dict.cc says translates to both shocking and thrilling, maybe that's a better description because it's not specifically about being happy or scared but rather a neutral energetic feeling? "Getting worked up" might be a translation of aufregen but it doesn't sound like what an english speaker would say in this situation due to connotation.

Re: ESA: Small meteorite will safely impact atmosphere tonight over northern France

#50
post #44
post #21

Wow!! From just east of Aachen, perfectly visible. Turning from a point of light coming down into a "oh wow that's really cool" into an actual fireball at >400 km horizontal distance! Holy crap that was exhilarating Edit: I was expecting that it would be too far away, also with Aachen's city glow and the highway, that nothing would be visible, or at best, a point appearing and disappearing at basically the same locat…

I used to do some astrophotography and I won't ever forget watching one night during the Perseids as a massive fireball streamed across the sky, completely unexpected, the thing was in the sky for a proper 2-3 seconds. I remember being freezing that night, and it was about a 1 hour drive to get to the location, absolutely worth it though!

Was that in 2016?

I've been watching meteor showers for about 40 years, but the 2016 Peseids was just amazing. At it's peak, we were getting 2 or 3 large meteors per minute. We couldn't stop saying "wow" about one before another would streak 1/3 across the sky. And I'm sure that we saw over a dozen bolides, at least one or two bright enough to cast shadows on the ground. It was that spectacular. I don't remember when the moon set but I believe that it was gone by the time the show peaked between 1 and 2 am. Truly a night I'll never forget.

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