Having seen some footage of the South African fireball last weekend, I thought it was quite impressive. However, a new video looking along a Johannesburg motorway has appeared online, and it’s superb.
I can’t find much information about this event, but it happened on November 21st and no fragments have been found so far.
Just in case you were in any doubt as to how much energy is released when a chunk of rock hits our atmosphere, this should give you a good impression:
I could almost feel the heat and hear the *KABLAAAM*.
Just when we thought it was getting quiet, a fireball exploded over Scandinavia last night. What’s more, there is outstanding video footage of the event over the skies of Sweden (above). There are a huge number of sightings from Sweden, Denmark and Holland which is good, there’s a better chance of finding any debris that way (in fact, if you saw something, contact the International Meteor Organization).
“The fireball occured on January 17th at 19:09 UT. It was a spectacular sight. Duration: 3 or 4 seconds, colours: yellow to green, fragmentation yes, brightness -10 or maybe brighter. I’m a meteor observer active since 1978 and I have observed almost 60 000 meteors since that time.” – Koen Miskotte, Ermelo, Netherlands.
Video of the fireball event over Colorado (Chris Peterson)
Early this morning, a huge explosion lit up the Colorado skies. According to one observatory that videoed the event with its ever-watching all-sky camera, the fireball (or bolide) peak brightness (magnitude -18) exceeded the brightness of a full Moon 100 times. An awesome event. The Cloudbait Observatory, near Denver, is calling on eye-witnesses to submit their reports so possible meteorite fragments can be found on the ground. Only last month, a similar effort resulted in Canadian meteorite hunters finding over two dozen fragments from the Saskatchewan fireball.
I must admit though (as one of my readers pointed out), it is surprising to hear about this recent flurry of large fireball events. Some of these meteoroids are as big as 10 tonnes (in the case of the Saskatchewan fireball), and scattered meteorites are being found on the ground (fortunately over sparsely populated regions). Are these recent series of fireball spottings down to improved observation techniques and a bit of luck? After all, the October fireball was observed directly over several all-sky cameras dedicated to spotting meteors; the November fireball was seen by a huge number of people in cities across the Saskatchewan/Alberta border and last night’s fireball appeared above another dedicated meteor all-sky camera.
A few of these events are expected every year, so this is certainly nothing to be concerned about, we’re just getting better at observing these transient events…
Having read though some of the updates across the space blogosphere, I thought it would be good to give the event a brief run-down via the pile of space blogs that have been following this surprise explosion and resulting discovery of meteorite fragments near Lloydminster, Saskatchewan… Continue reading “Blogosphere Canadian Fireball Updates”
The slow-moving fireball lights up Canadian skies (SOMN)
A stunning series of videos from seven all-sky cameras in the The University of Western’s Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN) captured the same fireball generated by a meteor entering the atmosphere pre-dawn on the morning of September 15th. Whilst meteors aren’t uncommon (if you hang around outside for long enough you might see one or two “shooting stars” yourself), this fireball was very bright and had a surprisingly slow velocity. What’s more, astronomers think that the extraterrestrial object came from a typical Earth-crossing orbit, possibly indicating this was another small near-Earth asteroid. In fact, meteorite hunters believe that it may have slowed significantly when passing through the atmosphere, dropping fragments to the ground. A great catch by the Canadian team, let’s get searching! Continue reading “Rare Meteor Fireball Captured by Seven Canadian Cameras (Videos)”
