In case the link won't load for anyone else, there's a YouTube video on the page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfNdaYqVxR0
I wish I had the resources to have a HD camera pointed at the sky 24/7 and recording capacity for moments like these.
Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
101–110 of 158 posts
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#102I was riding my bike to the Longs Peak TH, outside RMNP at around 5:00am one winter - around 9,000' - clear sky. A streak just like this went across the sky. I figured it was either a roman candle or the start of WWIII. Neither turned out to be true. Good summit of Longs Peak, that day.
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not immediately obvious to me – why would escape velocity also be the minimum speed at which an object could enter the atmosphere?
Indeed. What if the object was traveling at the same speed as Earth as it revolves around the Sun, and their paths intersect at a very acute angle? That is to say, they met at a traffic 'zipper' ... Could an object collide with earth at a lower speed?
No - because as they approach, Earth's gravitational field accelerates it.
Escape velocity is the velocity needed to reach an unbounded height from the surface, so reverse that timewise and any object free-falling towards Earth will have escape velocity upon reaching it.
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#104I 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…
I saw something similar, the weird thing is my brain hallucinated sound that couldn't have possibly been there. It was on dark winter night during a ferry crossing and the chunks intersected the horizon.
I saw one of these as well, sitting on top of a mountain with a friend. We were there to watch the Perseid meteor shower and were seeing small ones every few minutes, then a much larger one came across the sky. The head of it was glowing orange and green and I could also hear a crackling/burning noise. My friend saw the same thing and we were both so freaked out by it that we headed back to camp shortly afterwards.
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
> one has been caught on film
apparently it was just a rock[0]
[0]https://www.universetoday.com/111076/follow-up-on-skydiving-...
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#106I 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…
In 2008-2010 there was something that lit up the night sky like day over haldimand county in Ontario Canada
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's probably why the Russian one is so well documented. They have a dashcam culture
One of my fave videos is of the Russian guy who keeps driving and pulls his visor down like nothing happened even while a meteor near-misses: https://youtu.be/5bicUPQHcw4
That's a more focused and responsible driver than I'll ever be.
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you remember the day, and location? There may be corroborating reports.
It was 40 years ago in Newcastle, Australia at Merewether beach. I can’t even remember what I did last week.
“The 1978 New South Wales fireball“
4:44am I think - would’ve been visible from Merewether
> Abstract A very large meteor fireball passed through the atmosphere above the east coast of New South Wales early in the morning of 7 April 1978. It was seen at 04.44 AEST (18.44 UT, 6 April) by hundreds of people from the cities of Sydney and Newcastle who deluged the news media with telephoned sightings. The resulting publicity led to the collection of many reports, of which 19 were useful in defining the trajectory and ground track of the fireball. I define here the ground track, which is shown in Fig. 1, and include the locations of the eye-witnesses
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#109I was riding my bike to the Longs Peak TH, outside RMNP at around 5:00am one winter - around 9,000' - clear sky. A streak just like this went across the sky. I figured it was either a roman candle or the start of WWIII. Neither turned out to be true. Good summit of Longs Peak, that day.
I was at the base camp of Challenger Point / Kit Carson Peak, laying out watching the sky after dinner. I saw something similar to this but a bit more green and it shot off sparkles like a firework as it burnt up. Did not make the summit the next day though!
Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA
#110First time I see this website. I love how there's a community for observations in the sky, and there's a huge list of documented sightings of the same event, with timestamps, names, multiple photos, etc. Lovely!
Meanwhile, ufo sightings have some shaky phone footage and a crazy dude saying basically "woah". I just love the contrast.