Daytime Fireball Seen Over Florida - 17 april 2012

That's way too slow to be a fireball!
It's nothing more then a contrail filmed in the setting sun.
I see them everyday down here:

Funny that he suddenly has to shut off the camera when his, somewhat oblivious sounding, cohort threw in the unexpected “that's the second one we've seen” remark.

It could have been an atmosphere grazing meteor which would appear as a fireball just like this. Some Meteors just graze the upper atmosphere and continue back into space.

Earth-grazers enter the atmosphere at low angle, from the point of view of a given skywatcher, and appear to scoot slowly and dramatically along the horizon. They're much different than meteors appearing overhead and shooting swiftly toward the horizon

Source: Space.com

Fireballs come in faster, are brighter, and usually shed chunks of plasma on the way in:

Occasionally they will also pulsate as various materials burn off, and some even explode.

reply to post by defcon5


Yes they do, but the Earth grazing ones don't penetrate the atmosphere, they skim it and appear to move quite slowly. There are loads on record.

reply to post by Insomniac

Technically I believe that a grazer is going faster as it is not interacting with the thicker air for as long a period, but you can see them longer. None of that is going to change the other features that are common with fireballs.

In this case though, I think the beans were spilled at the end of the video when the girls adds that its the second one they've seen, and he immediately shuts off the camera. What are the odds of seeing two bolides, or even more rare, two earth grazing ones, in rapid succession.

reply to post by defcon5


You're right about the beans being spilled!

I've been trying to find an answer to whether the larger size of an earth grazing meteor or fireball would slow it enough to compensate for the lack of atmospheric drag, but I can't find the answer anywhere. Sorry.

Originally posted by zayonara
Low orbit satellites are way, way above any atmosphere that can cause contrails. You would not see them during the day unless they were on fire...which they are not. They won't make contrails at all, again, unless they are on fire.

I think what we have here are, airplane contrails, and/or meteors. With lots of people having the ability to film and share them these days, it appears to be an "epidemic". I still believe that the frequency of them has increased somewhat, but I have no proof to that effect. I don't have a control.

When one of these suddenly makes an instant 90 degree turn and instantly changes speed, I will worry.

EDIT: Satellites sometimes appear to disappear because they spin or rotate, and a reflective surface directs the sun's reflection away from your line of sight.

edit on 18-4-2012 by zayonara because: (no reason given)

I am not taking about the OP video, the other one posted further down the thread

Jeezus read the thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've seen plenty of airplanes at sunset. If this is an airplane as well then it is on fire.

Also, wouldn't the entry point into the atmosphere visually keep it in the sky for varying amounts of time and thereby 'change' the speed from a witness perspective? Say, the meteor/satellite started it's decent more parallel to that side of the planets earth? Eventually gravity will do its job but he witnessed the beginning of it sort of going across the horizon.

Edit: ahh I didn't see that others had already mentioned the possible conclusion--an Earth grazer

Its a plane contrail at sunset. There is a reason ALL these videos show an orange sky....

reply to post by PvtHudson


If it's contrails then why the sudden uprise in people believing it's a fireball, or, why are the airplanes contrails suddenly resembling a fireball?

reply to post by Human_Alien

If these are contrails people are reporting as fireballs then our atmosphere or the sun is changing, causing the shorter wavelength light such as violet, indigo, blue, etc. to be blocked out and longer wavelength (red, orange, yellow) light to show through. If it was the sun then it would cause all contrails to appear in the red, orange color not just the ones at dusk, so I would believe that it is our atmosphere that is blocking out the Violet end of the spectrum....either instance would not be good I assume.

Originally posted by Wheelindiehl
reply to post by PvtHudson

 

If it's contrails then why the sudden uprise in people believing it's a fireball, or, why are the airplanes contrails suddenly resembling a fireball?

There is nothing sudden about this. High altitude contrails in setting or rising sun have always resembled this. And they are consistently mistaken for anything but what they actually are.

reply to post by defcon5


If it is indeed a plane, why does it look like it's on fire? Is it just the reflection of the sunset on the side of it?

Originally posted by Bigfoot12714
reply to post by defcon5

 

Is it just the reflection of the sunset on the side of it?

edit on 19-4-2012 by Bigfoot12714 because: (no reason given)

YES! Just google "jet contrail at sunset".

Originally posted by youdidntseeme

Originally posted by Wheelindiehl
reply to post by PvtHudson

 

If it's contrails then why the sudden uprise in people believing it's a fireball, or, why are the airplanes contrails suddenly resembling a fireball?

There is nothing sudden about this. High altitude contrails in setting or rising sun have always resembled this. And they are consistently mistaken for anything but what they actually are.

I guess it just goes to show you how crappy television must be lately that people are getting out more in the evenings and are being surprised by common things like this.

I agree, with those who said this was not footage of a meteor/fireball.

1# The length of the footage - No confirmed natural meteor/fireball has ever lasted more than about 50 seconds, let alone footage of one. This "fireball" lasts well over a minute in terms of footage, and probably much longer if you consider that it was probably observed for a wh8ile before a camera was fetched, and looked like it was still going strong when the footage was cut.

Whilst the timing is too long for a natural meteor, it is more consistent with a reentry, but still seems a little bit too slow. Even the slowest of satellites will completely cross the sky (horizon to horizon) in 2 or 3 minutes. If you watch the footage, we have a frame of reference (the trees in the foreground), and we can get a rough idea of how much sky the object crosses. It's obvious that it would take many minutes (perhaps 10+) to cross the entire sky, which is inconsistent with a reentry.

The timing in this case is much more consistent with an aircraft.

2# The colour of the sky is what you would expect to see at sunset (or sunrise) when the sun is low on the horizon - just the right time for the sun to illuminate high altitude contrails with red/orange light.

Originally posted by Insomniac
I've been trying to find an answer to whether the larger size of an earth grazing meteor or fireball would slow it enough to compensate for the lack of atmospheric drag, but I can't find the answer anywhere.

It would be just the opposite, providing you don't change the surface area/weight ratio.

Simple Newtonian physics: Large objects have more momentum, so they don't slow down as easily.

That's part of the reason why most meteoroids (which are small) don't make anywhere close to the ground, the other part of the reason being that the density of the atmosphere rapidly increases with dropping altitude, especially at around 50km altitude, a zone sometimes referred to as "the wall" in meteorite hunting circles.

Sunlit Contrail.
2nd line ~

Originally posted by FireballStorm[/

Originally posted by Insomniac

I've been trying to find an answer to whether the larger size of an earth grazing meteor or fireball would slow it enough to compensate for the lack of atmospheric drag, but I can't find the answer anywhere.

It would be just the opposite, providing you don't change the surface area/weight ratio.

Simple Newtonian physics: Large objects have more momentum, so they don't slow down as easily.

That's part of the reason why most meteoroids (which are small) don't make anywhere close to the ground, the other part of the reason being that the density of the atmosphere rapidly increases with dropping altitude, especially at around 50km altitude, a zone sometimes referred to as "the wall" in meteorite hunting circles.

I'm pretty much convinced that the object was an aircraft, but you've confused me here, so could you explain a little further please?

Wouldn't a larger object be affected more severely by drag and a more massive object have more momentum?

The question that I couldn't find an answer for (and probably expressed badly) is which would prevail in an Earth grazing meteor scenario... The momentum because of the mass or the drag because of the size?