massive shooting star headed for northern france

hi all , we were just travelling by car heading east at 20.05 bst when the sky was lit up by what i can only describe as a massive shooting star. now ive seen loads of shooting stars before, a pin point of light with a thin white tail coming from it and they last about a second but this was different. it was headed in an easterly direction and we watched it for about 5 seconds before it dissapeared over the horizon. i will describe it as best i can, there was a white mass at the front center and fanning out about 30 degrees where white sparks which then trailed to orange, but the whole thing was wider than it was long. our position was 49.193119 2.12712 .if it was going to strike terra firma i would estimate that it would strike northern france . does anybody know of any large objects due to strike the planet

rosat or whats said to be rosat possibly good first eye

It is likely related to the Orionids.

As I understand it, showers like the Orionids are generally sized around the same as a piece of sand, even those give off quite the show.

Something as small as even a baseball would give results similar to what you described. It's most likely just a small piece of a meteor.

I would argue that you have never seen a shooting star.

Instead, I would propose you saw a meteor falling through the atmosphere.

reply to post by muzzleflash


DOH !

Originally posted by muzzleflash
I would argue that you have never seen a shooting star.

Instead, I would propose you saw a meteor falling through the atmosphere.

Unless they saw John Rambo flying through the atmosphere with his m60 blazing!

....when is that ROSAT satellite coming down? Isn't it supposed to be fri. or sat.?

Originally posted by ThaLoccster

Something as small as even a baseball would give results similar to what you described. It's most likely just a small piece of a meteor.

Of a meteoroid.
That is the terminology for a meteor before it enters the atmosphere.

That is when it would fragment into sections prior to giving off the glow of entry *during the meteoroid stage*.
If it had fragmented during entry, it would be easy to see the multiple fragments giving off individual tracers most likely.

That's why if it fragmented, and the other fragments were not visible during the entry event, than it would have to have fragmented prior to entry. Thus meteoroid.

reply to post by ThaLoccster


hi . checked out the link and the images and it didnt look anything like them, as i said it was wider than it was long ie no tail . looks like it could be rosat as 2 1/2 tons of metal would seem to make sense with what i observed

reply to post by da pickles


The German Sat is due down tonight isn't it? Could have been that!

I saw almost the same thing I live about 25 miles south of Chicago and me and my friend were out side smoking around 3 in the morning and its was heading in an easterly direction it had a bright central streak and what apeared to be a large translucent halo around it. So far away from each other tho?

nvm this was about 12 hours ago provably not the same object

reply to post by BriGuyTM90


your over 6000km away, would debris or a meteorite take that long ton break up?

Originally posted by ThaLoccster
It is likely related to the Orionids.

As I understand it, showers like the Orionids are generally sized around the same as a piece of sand, even those give off quite the show.

Something as small as even a baseball would give results similar to what you described. It's most likely just a small piece of a meteor.

It would not have been related to the Orionids.

Meteors belonging to the Orionid meteor stream always appear to travel away from Orion (where the Orionid "radiant" is). At the time the OP saw the meteor, Orion would have been on the horizon in the East.

It's more likely to have been a random asteroidal meteor as they tend to be harder than cometary material (like Orionids), and therefore last longer.

Long lasting and bright meteors are surprisingly common. A night or two observing under clear skies will usually yield one or two fireballs, even if there is no major meteor shower active at the time.

"Baseball-sized" meteors "burn-up" in our atmosphere all the time. It takes a much larger body to make it down to the ground, and much much larger to make it to the ground with any force.

I think that we average 1 piece a day of man-made debris that renter the atmosphere and burn up with 4000 pieces of debris having made it to the surface

Originally posted by iforget
I think that we average 1 piece a day of man-made debris that renter the atmosphere and burn up with 4000 pieces of debris having made it to the surface

I don't know the exact numbers, but that sounds plausible. However, it's dwarfed by the amount of extraterrestrial material that enters our atmosphere.

Meteorite flux is the total mass of extraterrestrial objects that strike the Earth. This is currently about 100,000,000 to 10000,000,000 kg/year.

Meteorites, Impacts, and Mass Extinction

Curiously there has only been 50 recorded meteor fall finds in all of France in the last 400 years so if anyone does find it if it landed then good on them.

Also shameless plug.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I do not think this was already the reentry of Rosat,must be soemething different...
According to DLR :
DLR Rosat
The ROSAT re-entry, in the period Saturday, 22.10.2011, about 18.00 UTC clock (20.00 clock EST) and Sunday, 23.10.2011, about 12:00 UTC clock (14.00 clock BST).

F & S big help here my 2 cents
Ok my Update on ROSAT Sat.

I'm using orbitron
www.stoff.pl...

And Heaven-above
www.heavens-above.com...

and Spaceflight Now
www.spaceflightnow.com...

and
satellite.tracks.free.fr...

and DLR
www.dlr.de...
10432/620_read-830/

and n2yo
www.n2yo.com...
Have FUN

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


very true There is just so much talk about UARS and now ROSAT and the description made me think more of debris than a natural meteorite.

My main point was that it didnt need to be ROSAT to be man-made debris.

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Yup thats exactly where it was it appeared right blow the belt and headed east it was really cool tho Glad I got to see it me and my friend were just like did you see that. We were looking at the sky because the sky was so clear. It had just stopped raining after 2 straight day so there were a lot of stars out. Living so close to Chicago we can only see planets and the brightest of stars here.

I`m actually surprised no-one`s said it yet...bits of Elenin