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Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

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Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#131

Post by School-Cotton »

askonomm wrote: post #120
terlisimo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a big one in the evening during army bootcamp. For a second or two it was as bright as day. One of the guys says "wtf was that?" and another replied "it's a falling star" (literal term we use for shooting stars in our language). A third guy asks, "so why do stars fall?". Silence. I ventured, "uh, guys... stars don't fall. Stars are like the Sun, just really far away. What we saw was a meteor, a rock that flew t…

For a moment I thought you are an Estonian, because we, too, call it a falling star. But our military service is still mandatory :(

We call it a falling star in English too (though “shooting star” is more common, at least in my experience).

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#132

Post by voytec »

askonomm wrote: post #120
terlisimo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a big one in the evening during army bootcamp. For a second or two it was as bright as day. One of the guys says "wtf was that?" and another replied "it's a falling star" (literal term we use for shooting stars in our language). A third guy asks, "so why do stars fall?". Silence. I ventured, "uh, guys... stars don't fall. Stars are like the Sun, just really far away. What we saw was a meteor, a rock that flew t…

For a moment I thought you are an Estonian, because we, too, call it a falling star. But our military service is still mandatory :(

Same in Poland - "spadające gwiazdy" - "falling stars". Even National Geographic uses this term[1] but exaplains in the lead: "Falling stars are meteores..."

[1] https://www.national-geographic.pl/artykul/spadajace-gwiazdy...

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#135

Post by capableweb »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #101
mh- wrote: post #3

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.

Typically, video footage is not archived 24/7. Instead, it is common to retain footage for a set number of hours or days before deleting it. If you want to preserve specific segments of the footage, you can "lock" them to prevent deletion.

This process works similarly to a recording buffer, and it is similar to how dash cams operate if you are familiar with those.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#136

Post by scotty79 »

andrepd wrote: post #133
mh- wrote: post #3

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

Why is the top suggestion on a science video like that an anti-vax rant?

Because it causes most engagement? Even you engaged with it in some form. You commented about it here.

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#137

Post by scotty79 »

terlisimo wrote: post #113
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…

I saw a big one in the evening during army bootcamp. For a second or two it was as bright as day. One of the guys says "wtf was that?" and another replied "it's a falling star" (literal term we use for shooting stars in our language). A third guy asks, "so why do stars fall?". Silence. I ventured, "uh, guys... stars don't fall. Stars are like the Sun, just really far away. What we saw was a meteor, a rock that flew t…

From George Carlin in a standup: "Imagine how dumb the average person is. Half of them are dumber than that."

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#138

Post by VLM »

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?

You all in the comments are rediscovering Lagrange points the hard way. L4 and L5 are stable, BTW, and we have a relatively famous space telescope at L2 which requires active stability control to stay there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#139

Post by stephen_g »

andrepd wrote: post #133
mh- wrote: post #3

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

Why is the top suggestion on a science video like that an anti-vax rant?

Suggestions are personalised for what it thinks you’ll engage with (depending on how much it has profiled you - if you’re logged in, have watch history). The top suggestion for that video when I’m logged in is a video about architecture…

Re: Fireball Spotted over Northeastern USA

#140

Post by stephen_g »

scotty79 wrote: post #137
terlisimo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a big one in the evening during army bootcamp. For a second or two it was as bright as day. One of the guys says "wtf was that?" and another replied "it's a falling star" (literal term we use for shooting stars in our language). A third guy asks, "so why do stars fall?". Silence. I ventured, "uh, guys... stars don't fall. Stars are like the Sun, just really far away. What we saw was a meteor, a rock that flew t…

From George Carlin in a standup: "Imagine how dumb the average person is. Half of them are dumber than that."

Yeah, but a lot of the population is clustered around the average so many of those half aren’t really much dumber than the average person (and of course a large number on the other side aren’t much more intelligent).
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