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PORTLAND - A flaming object was spotted streaking through the Saturday night sky across Western Oregon and the impact was heard all the way from Salem to Medford, according to various reports. Newspapers across the western half of the state and KPTV were getting phone calls from people who saw the object. Summer Jensen of Portland said she was sitting in her living room with her father when they saw the flash of light outside and rushed to see what it was. "I've never seen anything like that," Jensen said, adding that the object appeared to be moving slowly compared...

Corkscrew Meteor Mystery While photographing the recently discovered comet Machholz the other night, Jimmy Westlake's mind wandered back to a mystery that'd been bugging him for years. On Jan. 1, 1986, he was photographing another comet, Halley's, through his homemade 8-inch reflecting telescope. "About one minute into the exposure, I watched a meteor zip through the field of the telescope," said Westlake, a professor of physical sciences at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs, CO. "I stopped the exposure at two minutes." That night, when he developed the roll of slide film, he was astounded at what he saw: "Crossing...

METEOR SPOTTED IN NORTHCENTRAL WISCONSIN? Jan 5, 2005 AUTHORITIES IN NORTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN ARE BLAMING METEOR ACTIVITY FOR CAUSING DOZENS OF REPORTS OF BRIGHT FLASHES OF LIGHT IN THE SKY, AS FROM AN EXPLOSION, LAST EVENING. THE LINCOLN COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT SAYS THE FIRST REPORT CAME IN JUST AFTER SIX P-M AND TOLD OF A LARGE BRIGHT FLASH IN THE TOWN OF HARRISON. MORE REPORTS SOON CAME FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTY ABOUT LIGHTS AND STRANGE NOISES. IN ALL, THE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT GOT ABOUT 50 CALLS ... AND SIMILAR CALLS WERE RECEIVED IN ONEIDA, TAYLOR, PRICE AND LANGLADE COUNTIES. ACCORDING...

Someone in deep black space deliberately bombards the Earth with meteorites Residents of Jakarta and two other neighboring Indonesian towns were frightened with a series of loud explosions on December 18th overnight. Western special services warned Jakarta of possible terrorists acts in the country on Christmas Eve. The police, however, did not find any destruction either in Jakarta, or near it. Local television channels reported that several people had seen some objects, possibly meteorites, falling down from the sky. There were no meteorites found in the area either. The Indonesian Air Force confirmed the meteorite origin of the above-mentioned explosions...

The object, named 2004 YD5, was about 16 feet (5 meters) wide, though that's a rough estimate based on its distance and assumed reflectivity. Had it entered the atmosphere, it would have exploded high up, experts figure. The asteroid passed just under the orbits of geostationary satellites, which at 22,300 miles (36,000 kilometers) altitude are the highest manmade objects circling Earth. Most other satellites, along with the International Space Station, circle the planet at just a few hundred miles up... the second closest pass of an asteroid ever observed by telescope, according to the Asteroid/Comet Connection, a web site that...

Several loud blasts were heard in the Indonesian capital Jakarta and two other towns nearby early on Sunday, local Metro TV reported. It reported residents heard the blasts around 7.30 a.m. (0030 GMT). Police were not immediately available to comment. Western governments have warned of possible terror attacks in Indonesia over the Christmas and New Year period.

A meteor shower that had some startled motorists calling police is expected to continue over the next few days. Saturday night's light show was part of the Geminids meteor shower, News4 reported. Montgomery and Fairfax county police, along with Dulles Airport and the space agency, NASA, received calls about the spectacle.

Astronomy Picture of the Day 2004 December 7 A Strange Streak Imaged in Australia Credit & Copyright: Wayne Pryde Explanation: Meteor experts don't think it's a meteor. Atmospheric scientists don't think it's lightning. The photographer insists that the streak and flash on the above image has not been created digitally. So what is it? Nobody is sure. APOD's editors do not claim to know - one purpose of posting this image is to mine the eclectic brain trust of APOD's readers to help see if some unusual phenomenon was caught serendipitously. The strange features were captured on a series of...

NORTHERN Territory scientists were last night studying what could be the first photograph of a meteorite hitting Earth. The chances of an impact being captured on film are millions to one. "If this is true, it's one of the most remarkable pictures ever taken," astronomy tutor Geoff Carr said yesterday. The photograph was taken by keen amateur photographer Wayne Pryde as he stood near the Darwin Cenotaph on The Esplanade and looked down to Fort Hill Wharf on Monday evening. The meteorite, which could have been as small as a grain of sand, would have been travelling about 30,000km/h. Mr...

Largest ever field of impact craters uncovered 10:00 07 November 04 The discovery of the largest field of impact craters ever uncovered on Earth is the first evidence that the planet suffered simultaneous meteor impacts in the recent past. The field has gone unnoticed until now because it is partially buried beneath the sands of the Sahara desert in south-west Egypt. Philippe Paillou of Bordeaux University Observatory in Floirac, France, first noticed circular geological structures in the Sahara last year, while analysing radar satellite pictures of the area. The structures turned out to be part of a huge field of...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 August 20 Raining Perseids Credit & Copyright: Fred Bruenjes Explanation: Comet dust rained down on planet Earth last week, streaking through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower. So, while enjoying the anticipated space weather, astronomer Fred Bruenjes recorded a series of many 30 second long exposures spanning about six hours on the night of August 11/12 using a wide angle lens. Combining those frames which...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 August 12 The Spectrum of a Meteor Credit & Copyright: P. Jenniskens (SETI Inst.), E. Jehin (ESO) et al., FORS1/VLT, ESO Explanation: Chasing the brief flash of a meteor trail across the sky with a very large telescope is a nearly impossible task. But on May 12, 2002, astronomers got lucky, as a bright meteor chanced across the narrow slit of their spectrograph at the Paranal Observatory....

Worldnetdaily.com Did aliens save planet in 1908? Russians say they have found spaceship debris. scientific team researching the site of the Tunguska meteorite crash of 1908 say they have found remnants of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, report a variety of Russian news agencies. .... ....."I am fully confident and I can make an official statement that we were saved by some forces of a superior civilization," Yuri Lavbin said. "They exploded this enormous meteorite that headed towards us with enormous speed," he said. Now this great object that caused the meteorite to explode is found at last. We will continue our...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 August 11 A Perseid Meteor Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (Astropics) Explanation: The ongoing Perseid Meteor Shower should be at its strongest tonight and tomorrow night. Although meteors should be visible all night long, the best time to watch will be between 2:00 AM and dawn each night. In dark, moonless, predawn skies you may see dozens of meteors per hour. Sky enthusiasts in Europe and Asia...

   PERSEID METEORS: The Perseid meteor shower is underway. Every hour, 10 or so meteors are streaking from the constellation Perseus, and that number will increase 3- to 5-fold on Wednesday night, August 11th, when the shower peaks. [More]Got clouds? Try listening to the Perseids: audio: Naval Space Surveillance Radar (Kickapoo, Texas)audio: 67 MHz meteor radar (Roswell, New Mexico) When a Perseid flies over one of these meteor radars, they record a ghostly ping. Credit: Live audio provided by engineer Stan Nelson.

Probe to 'look inside' asteroids By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff in Paris, France Studies of asteroids would aid Earth-protection strategies A new space mission concept unveiled at a Paris conference aims to look inside asteroids to reveal how they are made. Deep Interior would use radar to probe the origin and evolution of two near-Earth objects less than 1km across. The mission, which could launch some time later this decade, would also give clues to how the planets evolved. The perceived threat of asteroids colliding with our planet has renewed interest in space missions to understand these...

It's the talk of East Texas Thursday. What was that light in the sky Wednesday night? It appears East Texas was right in the middle of a meteor shower. People reported seeing a bright object in the skies from Wichita Falls, to Little Rock, to Houston. That includes all of East Texas. A police car dashboard camera in Dallas, Texas caught the light show on camera. The bright ball with the trailing tail can be clearly seen in the video. Heather Williams in Kilgore says she saw the light show in the front yard of her Kilgore home. "In the...

A large meteor streaked through the Central United States this evening... Did anyone see it? Happened around 9:15 p.m. or so

Today In New Zealand News NewstalkZB A South Island radio station is being swamped with reports of a meteor strike in the Mackenzie Country. People from Christchurch to Timaru say they saw a bright light streaking across the sky around 9.30 on Saturday night. Port FM announcer James Valentine says he has taken dozens of calls describing the dramatic end of the meteor's journey. He says it exploded before it hit the ground, and flames and debris were seen in the sky. James Valentine says a consensus is building around the idea the meteor crashed to earth somewhere near Twizel.

Space Weather News for June 18, 2004 http://spaceweather.com JUNE BOOTID METEORS: Earth is heading for a cloud of dust shed by Comet Pons-Winnecke in the 19th century. An encounter with the cloud might produce a pleasing meteor shower before sunrise on Wednesday, June 23rd. Or not. Forecasters aren't sure. If a shower materializes, sky watchers in western North America and across the Pacific Ocean are favored to see it.