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Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

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Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#81

Post by wkat4242 »

zamnos wrote: post #42
kneebonian wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try uBlock oirign my friend.

I know the idea of paying for things isn't cool or whatever, but there's also the option of paying for premium, which also gets rid of ads on mobile without using having to sideload some sketchy app.

Ublock isn't sketchy. Nor is NewPipe, which allows you to use it (and have favorites) without an account so there's less tracking. Premium doesn't let you do that, you pay but Google still gets to datamine you as much as they want as well.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#82

Post by wkat4242 »

swores wrote: post #36
OJFord wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an experience a bit like that, but with mini-tornadoes, somewhere along the M11 in the UK (Essex I think, but perhaps the edge of Cambs). I recall looking it up afterwards and it seemed to be 'a thing', though none of the news examples I found from various years before the event were anything like as extreme - tens and tens of them, well-formed. A truly bizarre 'what is happening' experience for me - before tha…

" the UK gets an average of 30-50 tornadoes a year. That’s more tornadoes per land area than anywhere else in the world (except – weirdly – the Netherlands.) " https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3QTh1mRGDNg16cDYHg... I too would've said we never get them here, apart from remembering one big one in the news I think in or near Birmingham...

Yeah I'm from the Netherlands and I've seen several "tornadoes". However they're not the ones you see in the movies. They're real whirlwinds and I've seen them kill tents at campsites but buildings are generally fine. They come and go quickly.

They're high in number but I've never heard of one having a real mass-destructive effect like you see in the tornado areas in the US. I don't think we ever get that kind of thing.

I guess what makes us seem to have so many is not the actual occurrence of these but the high population density so there's always someone around to notice it. As opposed to some whirlwinds just spinning around in the desert.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#83

Post by xbar »

eternalban wrote: post #80
roywiggins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Near-earth asteroids periodically wander into temporary orbits around the Earth and then wander off. https://earthsky.org/space/2020-so-mini-moon-asteroid-or-spa...

Thanks for the link. "Strange space object 2020 SO was discovered on September 17, 2020, on approach to Earth. On November 8, it slowly drifted into Earth’s sphere of gravitational dominance, to become a new mini-moon. It’ll escape back into a new orbit around the sun in March 2021. During that time, it’ll make 2 large loops around our planet." Why would it leave orbit if it already does 2 circles?

Think of them as increasingly elongated elipses and you can imagine the instability building...

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#84

Post by wkat4242 »

grugagag wrote: post #51
ChickenNugger wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or space trash, but I'm leaning meteor.

Does space trash look particularly distinctive when it makes back to earth? Human made space trash to be specific.

While flying, no but it might break up a bit more than a rock.

When on the ground it can be big enough for parts to be identified yeah.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#85

Post by wkat4242 »

mannykannot wrote: post #46
swores wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" the UK gets an average of 30-50 tornadoes a year. That’s more tornadoes per land area than anywhere else in the world (except – weirdly – the Netherlands.) " https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3QTh1mRGDNg16cDYHg... I too would've said we never get them here, apart from remembering one big one in the news I think in or near Birmingham...

While some do damage, I have to wonder if most of these events would be called merely whirlwinds or dust devils in most of the world? I'm also guessing that in an area of often high humidity, a funnel cloud might more easily form in a relatively weak whirlwind, that if it happened elsewhere. Also, this is south-east England ("Berkshire into London") specifically, and also the Netherlands - some of the more densely po…

Exactly, I think the same, I was just commenting this too. I think it's more a statistical anomaly.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#87

Post by roywiggins »

eternalban wrote: post #80
roywiggins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Near-earth asteroids periodically wander into temporary orbits around the Earth and then wander off. https://earthsky.org/space/2020-so-mini-moon-asteroid-or-spa...

Thanks for the link. "Strange space object 2020 SO was discovered on September 17, 2020, on approach to Earth. On November 8, it slowly drifted into Earth’s sphere of gravitational dominance, to become a new mini-moon. It’ll escape back into a new orbit around the sun in March 2021. During that time, it’ll make 2 large loops around our planet." Why would it leave orbit if it already does 2 circles?

They're orbits, but not stable ones. Not even really ellipses. By the time it's made one orbit-ish motion around the planet, the moon has moved relative to it. The second go around it gets affected by the new position of the moon. Eventually the combined effects of the moon and the sun's changing relative positions will nudge it out of orbit.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#88

Post by killjoywashere »

buck4roo wrote: post #74
AYBABTME wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, if a meteor was moving very slowly (relatively) and basically just gently falling to earth, if we'd notice.

Yes. They are the largest source of extraterrestrial mass. https://www.sciencealert.com/5-200-tons-of-micrometeorites-a...

And one has been caught on film (we think) https://www.universetoday.com/110963/norwegian-skydiver-almo....

There’s also a nice coffee table book about them:

https://www.amazon.com/Search-Stardust-Micrometeorites-Terre...

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#89

Post by more_corn »

vba616 wrote: post #57
FPGAhacker wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do meteors ever hit the atmosphere at low speed?

Yes, relatively speaking. First likely hit I found: "Meteors enter the atmosphere at speeds ranging from 11 km/sec...to 72 km/sec ... The wide range in meteoroid speeds is caused partly by the fact that the Earth itself is traveling at about 30 km/sec (67,000 mph) as it revolves around the sun. On the evening side, or trailing edge of the Earth, meteoroids must catch up to the earth’s atmosphere to cause a meteor, an…

Neat! I hadn’t thought that through, but it makes sense.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#90

Post by JoshTriplett »

andrewstuart wrote: post #68

I saw a meteor once when I was a kid. I was on the beach and it streaked across the sky and exploded into a bunch of other things that streaked a little further and faded out. I never really told anyone because it seem so preposterous that I wasn't really sure I had seen it at all. It was well out over the over the ocean a number of kilometeres and up very high - zero chance it was fireworks and there weren't ny on t…

Do you remember the day, and location? There may be corroborating reports.
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