Sun burps....humanity fries....Bush’s fault.
WHAT ABOUT THE FIREBALLS?
BLINDING FIREBALL: On Friday night Sept. 25th, at approximately 9:03 pm EDT, an asteroid the size of a child’s tricycle hit Earth just above Lake Ontario. It was a lucky strike, right in the middle of a network of seven all-sky cameras operated by the University of Western Ontario (UWO). The disintegrating asteroid produced a blinding fireball 100 times brighter than a full Moon. Click on the image to view a movie from the Hamilton, Ontario, station:
The asteroid exploded in flight, producing strong low-frequency sound waves in the atmosphere. Analysis of infrasound records along with video from the seven camera stations lead researchers to believe that fragments of the asteroid could have reached the ground. “This bright fireball was large enough to have dropped meteorites in a region south of Grimsby on the Niagara Peninsula, providing masses that may total as much as several kilograms,” according to a UWO press release.
FIREBALL #2: Unrelated to the Ontario fireball of Sept. 25th, another fireball lit up the skies of New Mexico on Oct. 9th at 2:04 am MDT. “It was a super-sized meteor almost as bright as the full Moon,” reports amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft. “Happily, my observatory was running on all cylinders and I was able to photograph the fireball and capture its radio sounds.” Turn up the volume and click here.
Although the Draconid meteor shower was active on the night of Oct. 8th-9th, this meteor was no Draconid. “It did not come from the constellation Draco,” notes Ashcraft. “It appears to be a random or ‘sporadic’ meteoroid.”
info from spaceweather.com
And today 13th
NETHERLANDS FIREBALL: This evening in the Netherlands, at approximately 16:56 UT, a fireball nearly as bright as the full Moon streaked across the twilight sky. “It was red-orange in color and broke apart into 5 or 6 pieces as I watched it from the village of Ermelo,” says eye-witness Koen Miskotte. Other observers report sonic booms, low rumbles and shaking windows. A lucky shot by photographer Jan de Vries caught the meteor in mid-flight. Stay tuned for updates.