Wow, Meteor Detection Live View quite active/updates, page 2

Hey guys and gals!!!



Thanks for all the kind/gracious/funny etc comments and videos/pics!

I'm really thrilled people got a kick out of this, sometimes I think I'm a bit of an oddball being into stuff like this and not into stuff like American Idol (not that there is anything wrong with American Idol) - to each his own!

If you guys liked that, I found another cool site called:

The latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News

With a lot of neat stuff, a map of the latest 25 Worldwide meteor reports (that isn't working on my firefox), a reporting function, etc.

Let's keep the thread going with anything cool meteor/meteorite people hear about or see online, or even better if people happen to see one! (but hopefully not TOO close up)

Personally, I have never seen a fireball, but have seen many shooting stars in the summer when away from the city.

Cheers!

Originally posted by dodgygeeza
Previous Episodes on Mass Hysteria:

AIDS
Global Nuclear Annihilation
Over-Population
Destruction of the Ozone-Layer
Acid Rain
Y2K
Avian Flu
Swine Flu
Terrorism
Global Warming

Next Weeks Episode:

Dooms-day asteroids (It's gonna be a good 'un!)

Personally, I think you're way off base here, most people were just commenting on how cool they thought it was, and the one post I noticed that even hinted at more was a dream - and people can dream about anything.

People generally find this topic interesting, and I think the real-time aspect of the meteor detection site increases the appeal.

I mean come on, people get interested in volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, solar flares etc - natural phenomenon; unlike the manmade issues you brought up. Apples to oranges.

What I do find interesting is that say in the nineties, you might see on the computer or hear about in the news or read about in the newspaper about one of these very bright fireballs - maybe once every few years. Even five years ago, when youtube was going strong, that was the case.

Even at the beginning of this year a big fireball made headlines, and the story says the last big one before that in Western Canada, which is a huge area, was in 2008.

Now we are getting bright fireballs around the world every week, and sometimes for consecutive days - and the media pays less attention to them - because they are not a big deal anymore.

Just a few very recently off the top of my head - the one seen streaking in Nevada/California with the boom, the one in the UK a couple weeks ago, the bunch of them in Colorado for which airspace was closed and they were thought to be the cause of forest fires - I'm sure you can think of more recent ones.

Prarie fireball big news only 8 months ago:

Alberta/Saskatchewan Fireball lights up Prarie Skies

Originally posted by lurksoften

Meteor Shower Lights Up Bay Area Skies

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A meteor shower spawned by history’s most famous comet lit up skies above the Bay Area on Wednesday night, and experts at NASA and the National Weather Service said more would appear with increasing frequency through this weekend. Space.com reported that the Orionid meteor shower should reach its zenith overnight from Saturday to Sunday as Earth plows through debris shed by Halley’s Comet on its path around the sun. The most impressive display should come a few hours before dawn Sunday, scientists predicted.

Source

i saw this.. was very startling... i could see chunks falling off it.. and it wasn't as fast as a "shooting star" . probably slowed down by the friction in the atmosphere... was spectacular! i honestly was anticipating an impact sound.

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
What I do find interesting is that say in the nineties, you might see on the computer or hear about in the news or read about in the newspaper about one of these very bright fireballs - maybe once every few years. Even five years ago, when youtube was going strong, that was the case.

Even at the beginning of this year a big fireball made headlines, and the story says the last big one before that in Western Canada, which is a huge area, was in 2008.

Now we are getting bright fireballs around the world every week, and sometimes for consecutive days - and the media pays less attention to them - because they are not a big deal anymore.

Just a few very recently off the top of my head - the one seen streaking in Nevada/California with the boom, the one in the UK a couple weeks ago, the bunch of them in Colorado for which airspace was closed and they were thought to be the cause of forest fires - I'm sure you can think of more recent ones.

Prarie fireball big news only 8 months ago:

Alberta/Saskatchewan Fireball lights up Prarie Skies

That's not true. There have always been plenty of fireball activity. It's just that a large part of it does not make the news, so unless you are looking for reports, you probably won't hear about them.

Why doesn't it make the news? you might ask. Well there are a variety of reasons. Primarily, because the Earth is a big place, and most of it's surface area is either ocean or very sparsely inhabited. Many fireballs are missed because of this, or because it's daylight/cloudy, or simply because most people are tucked up in bed.

Even if they are observed by people, unless there is footage or the fireball is seen by thousands of people, it usually won't make the MSM since there isn't much of a story without footage.

It is true that more fireballs are being reported now than ever before, but we also have more people observing than ever before, more cameras pointing up at the sky, and better communications. Not to mention that there are now numerous "on-line fireball report forms" which did not exist before a few years ago.

Being on a forum like this one also helps, since you have people from around the world posting about events that sometimes won't even make local news, let alone the MSM.

Anyway, here is a list of mostly fireball (but also meteor related) reports posted on ATS that I collected for a few years, between 2007-2009, in roughly chronological order. If you look through them you will see that there are many fireballs every year, but keep in mind the vast majority are not reported here on ATS (or anywhere).

Also keep in mind fireballs are actually quite common - it's been estimated that there are at least 2 events somewhere on Earth each day that drop meteorites on the ground (or in the sea more usually), and many more that do not drop meteorites but are still bright enough to be classed as fireballs - that is a meteor that is as bright/brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the brightness of Venus as observed in the night sky.

NEBRASKA FIREBALL 9 p.m. Central
Just saw a unique "fireball" - looking for info, if any
South Africa Nov. 21 - Another big fireball/meteor (w/video footage)
Meteor Crashes somewhere in Johannesburg!
Midwest megameteor makes media madness
Great Western Fireball
Green Fire Ball flies across the Calgary morning sky (3/29/09)
Fireball and flash in the sky alarms Utahns
Indonesian Super-Bolide Explosion ( why wasn't this on the news?)
Did anyone see what dropped out of the sky in northern ca. 5pmish 11-7-9
Asteroid explosion over Indonesia raises fears about Earth's defences
UFO crash in Russia last week
Fireball over Holland(w/ pic!)
Breaking: UFO in Northern Germany
The Meteor Shower That Wasn't A Meteor Shower
Huge light over the gold coast city
Bright Blue Flash and Burning Blue Object in Night Sky - PA
Really bright shooting stars over the North-East of England
Father captures mysterious flash speeding across the sky on his camera phone
UFO Sighting August 7th 2009 appx. 8:37 EST
Are Meteorites Treated as UFOs?
Unidentified Object crashes into QLD mountain
Close Encounbters in Siberia (TUNGUSKA with VIDEO Link)
bright green fallign thing
Intense White Meteor
Another Meteor Fireball: Ireland
UFO mar31/09 streaks across calgary sky leaves a lot of people asking..
Loud explosions in Hampton Roads area
UFO-induced "Non--sonic" Boom Rattles So. Cal?
UFO - meteor like object with sonic boom above Dallas and Austin Texas!
Possible UFO crash in Saudi Arabia - Millions Of Witnesses!!
Massive object crashes over Edmonton,Canada
Big blue light over sweden
UFO over Tok Alaska
Nice video footage of Meteor over Croatia
Green meteor/fireball sighting?
Heads up - it's a Taurid Swarm year!
Utah meteor?
Green Meteorite (??) spotted North of Toronto
Russian News: Camera Recorded Strange UFO at Night
Clay tablet sheds new light on ancient asteroid "impact" in Köfels
Fireball Over Polk County
Green Fireball UFO crash in Oregon last night
Bright Meteor 10/9/08 seen over Chicago. Did anyone see it?
Fireball in sky, 1st November
Fireball lights up night sky in Switzerland March 01/08
Mysterious Fireball Prompts Dozens Of 911 Calls
Big fireball SW USA - 18th Jan
Mysterious "Fireball" seen over 4 US states Today
Monday, Jan. 19th at 16:28 UT, a huge fireball was seen in western Norway
Reports of ANOTHER very large fireball
A few meters planetoid will hit Earth
Major Bolide Forecast Tonight; No Damage Expected
A Shooting Star?
meteor 10-9-08
Bolide Footage From Melbourne
weird green ball with tail
Possible UFO Crash In Finland (Video)


You might also like to compare with The American Meteor Society Fireball Logs.


Another thing to keep in mind is that there is natural random variation in the timing of fireball events. As you would expect in many natural systems, there are sometime clusters of events in a short space of time, followed by lulls in activity.

Since I became a member of ATS (in 2007 under my old username), whenever there has been one of these "clusters", at least one person has always asked the same questions you are asking now. You are certainly not alone in your interest in meteors.

I personally have been interested in them ever since one night in November 1998 when it "rained" fireballs all night, and have observed hundreds of fireball class meteors since then.

Since you are interested in meteors and fireballs I would highly recommend you have a look at the following links which I would say are probably the best sources for factual information on the web:

The American Meteor Society
The International Meteor Organization
METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

Also:
The IAU Meteor Data Center(list of known meteor showers)
Meteor tracking networks
Hungarian Meteor Network
North American Meteor Network
NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network
The Spanish Meteor and Fireball Network
The British Columbia Meteor Network
UK Meteor Monitoring Network (UKMON)
The Desert Fireball Network
The European Fireball Network (in German)
The Saskatchewan Fireball Camera Network
French Meteor Observing Network
Cloudbait Observatory
Meteorite and Impact Advisory Committee of the Canadian Space Agency
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)
Meteor Physics (The University of Western Ontario)
Meteorite-list -- Meteorite Collectors and Hunters Mailing List
Fireball/image database
Meteor Observing Calander (Meteor Showers Online)
Meteor Observing Calander (The International Meteor Organization)
Meteor shower activity predictions (Mikhail Maslov)
Meteor shower activity predictions (The Institut de Mecanique Celeste et de Calcul des Ephemerides)
Major Meteor Showers (The American Meteor Society)


For scientific papers on the subject try a domain search of "adsabs.harvard.edu"

reply to post by PlanetXisHERE

---

Neat, don't really know what I am seeing but it was still kinda neat.

Originally posted by prevenge
i saw this.. was very startling... i could see chunks falling off it.. and it wasn't as fast as a "shooting star" . probably slowed down by the friction in the atmosphere...

Your average "shooting star" (or meteor) is usually quite fast granted, but some can be very slow - about as slow as the fastest satellites (around 10 km/s).

However, it's often not possible to see the "actual speed" of a meteor since perspective plays a very large part in how fast a meteor (that is not traveling at a right angle in relation to an observer) appears to travel. A meteor that is not traveling at right angles to an observer (the vast majority of them) will always appear to be traveling slower than it actually is.

The most extreme example of this is what is known as a "point meteor". Basically, it's a meteor that is heading directly towards you, so even though it might be moving at 72 km/s (the maximum speed allowed for meteoroids in solar orbits), it won't appear to move at all to you, although to someone else seeing the same meteor 100 km away, it would look like a normal fast moving meteor.

That's just one of many deceptive aspects of meteors. You touched on another - many people, when they see a bright meteor or fireball say that they were "expecting an impact" or that it "looked like it was extremely close", when in fact we know that in the vast majority of cases the meteor was actually many tend or even hundreds of km away. Even the big ones which penetrate deep into the atmosphere get down no lower than 10-15 km above the ground before they are slowed down so much they no longer produce light.

Experienced sky watchers on SeeSat-L may find it difficult to believe that anyone could misidentify a re-entry as a spaceship, but human perception is notoriously fallible, and no one is immune. Much depends on the circumstances and personal experience. Driving through the wilderness under a pitch black sky, and suddenly faced with a slowly moving formation of brilliant lights can be awe-inspiring and even terrifying. The human mind races to make sense of the unfamiliar, drawing on experience that may be inadequate. Depth perception can play tricks, such that something 200 km away, 100 km long, and moving at 7 km/s, seems to be just 200 m away, 100 m long, and moving 7 km/h - the angular velocity is roughly the same.

Source: Seesat-l mailing list

Due to their great brightness large meteors often create a remarkable optical illusion in which it appears that they have hit the ground somewhere nearby. The glowing fireballs we see in the night sky are caused by atmospheric pressure and friction, but meteors stop ablating (burning) approximately seven miles high. If you are lucky enough to witness a bright fireball, and the flame goes out while it's directly overhead, it is possible that the meteorite will land nearby. When we see a bright shooting star apparently landing close by, what we are usually seeing is a fireball arcing away, over the horizon, still high up in the atmosphere. Due to the curvature of the Earth, the fireball may seem to hit the ground, but has in fact just moved out of our field of view and gone beyond the horizon. Because of its extreme brightness the fireball appears — to our human eyes — to be much closer than it actually is. It's something I, myself, have been fortunate enough to witness a couple of times and it's frustrating because it does look as if the meteorite landed "just over there." However, it probably landed hundreds of miles away. Another thing to consider is that when a meteorite lands near observers, those witnesses report hearing loud sonic booms, and/or "whizzing" noises. If no sound accompanied the spectacle, then the meteor was probably a great distance away. But at least you had the privilege of witnessing a real fireball!

Source: aerolite.org

reply to post by FireballStorm

---

good to know. thnx.

in any regards.. the PERCEIVED speed "from the 'notion' of speed" from my audience eye, was vastly slower than the shooting stars i've seen all through my life whizzing past my periphery.
This was creeping yet 4x the speed of any airplane.. and broke apart.. pieces falling off it and flaring up .. sizzling..


thnx for the info tho.

gotta realize it's all relative to the layman observer.

reply to post by FireballStorm

---

Thanks for the info! Lot's of good stuff to go through.

All I know is that for me, ten or twenty years ago one of these would be big news, even a year ago or five years ago one of these would be big news (as demonstrated in the link above), yet now seem commonplace.

I'm sure many other members would agree with me and I have heard as much from other members, and I don't know why you are trying so hard to convince me otherwise of what I know to be the case. You mention these fireballs have been active since 2007 - sure, that is recent history. People still posted videos to the internet before the advent of youtube in 2005 or would contact news organizations to share their video recordings - and ten years ago, in 2002, these sightings were extremely rare.

Originally posted by FireballStorm

The most extreme example of this is what is known as a "point meteor". Basically, it's a meteor that is heading directly towards you, so even though it might be moving at 72 km/s (the maximum speed allowed for meteoroids in solar orbits), it won't appear to move at all to you, although to someone else seeing the same meteor 100 km away, it would look like a normal fast moving meteor.

So if a meteor was a "point" meteor, and it was heading directly to you or away from you, wouldn't you see it pass overhead, or have just seen it pass overhead?

Also, in years or decades gone by these were always described as bright yellow or orange. Now many people describe them to be greenish. The combustion of what mineral/element is greenish, and why is it being seen now and never or rarely before?

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
All I know is that for me, ten or twenty years ago one of these would be big news, even a year ago or five years ago one of these would be big news (as demonstrated in the link above), yet now seem commonplace.

I'd argue that an event with sonic booms heard is big news now.

Sure we see lots of fireballs reported now (probably for the reasons I went through in my previous post), but the frequency of big events with sonic booms/possible meteorites on the ground is more or less the same as it was a decade ago in my experience. Back then, I don't think as many of these types of events would have made the MSM, although they may well have made local news, so you probably would not have heard about them as often as you do now - especially being on ATS.

Admittedly, that's based on my own personal impression over the last 14 years that I have been following reports of fireballs and meteors.

But it's not just me who thinks this is the case:

The next logical question is what is causing the apparent increase in fireballs
seen this month? The key word here is apparent. It could very well be that there is no increase at all, but rather a marked increase in the number of reported fireballs. Mr. Hankey
has worked with the AMS in providing an easy way to report fireball sightings
and the general public has responded with a record
number of reports so far in January. If you look through the last five years
that the AMS has available, you will see an increase in
every year. The increase is certainly not as dramatic as January 10 vs. January
11, but that again can be attributed to the recent
change in format. I am also confident that no matter the number of NEO's in
January 2012, there were still be more fireball reports
in January 12 vs. January 11.
Interesting subject and I appreciate the contributions of Dirk, Mike, Wayne, and
Carl!

Bob Lunsford

Source: click here

Bob Lunsford is the Operations Manager/Journal Editor of the AMS.

Most large fireballs are green. And it certainly is not clear to me that we
are seeing any statistically significant increase in fireball activity. Like
so much in nature, meteor frequencies are described by Poisson statistics,
and that means we'll naturally see periods of increased activity and periods
of decreased activity. Our brains want to connect this to something
physical, but I doubt anything is really there.

Chris

Source: click here

Chris L Peterson runs the Cloudbait Observatory which is a dedicated meteor camera observatory.

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
I'm sure many other members would agree with me and I have heard as much from other members.

I'm sure most would also, but then most people would not take into account the factors I mentioned which would influence perception of the frequency of these kinds of events, so it's not surprising.

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
I don't know why you are trying so hard to convince me otherwise of what I know to be the case.

Because I know that the impressions people have relating to this subject are often misleading.

I personally want to do my bit to ensure that the general public/readership of ATS is well informed on the subject - it's not just for you.

That is also why I have provided as many links as I could dig up - so that you and others can research the subject using the most factual sources available, and ultimately make your own minds up on the subject.

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
You mention these fireballs have been active since 2007 - sure, that is recent history. People still posted videos to the internet before the advent of youtube in 2005 or would contact news organizations to share their video recordings - and ten years ago, in 2002, these sightings were extremely rare.

Yes, it is true that cameras have been around for a while, BUT, almost everyone has a camera now. That was not the case a decade ago. Most cameras were analog back then, and relatively expensive compared to today, so not everyone had one.

The same is true of "all sky fireball networks" which constantly monitor the sky at night for fireballs. Very few existed a decade ago. Now there are dozens of such networks scattered throughout the world, and more are being set up all the time.

Let's not forget that the population is increasing too, and now even kids have their own cameras (usually on a phone). Did you have your own camera when you were a kid?

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
So if a meteor was a "point" meteor, and it was heading directly to you or away from you,

You'd never see a point meteor heading directly away from you, unless you were observing from orbit, and the meteoroid did not kill you when it passed through you

I suppose there might be a possible scenario, where an earth grazing meteor having an extremely low angle might pass through the atmosphere, and back out into space.

Something like this, where "A" is the observer, and the green line represents a meteoroid traveling from right to left:

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
wouldn't you see it pass overhead, or have just seen it pass overhead?

In the case of the diagram above, yes. It would effectively be a point fireball both on the way in, and on the way out, but not in between.

However, such a scenario is extremely unlikely. The object would have to be very large (perhaps 0.5 km diameter) to survive low into the atmosphere, and make it's way out again. Most large objects break up/self-destruct when they hit the much denser lower layers of atmosphere.

Seeing a normal point meteor that heads towards you is quite rare to begin with. They are usually only seen during meteor outbursts/storms.

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
Also, in years or decades gone by these were always described as bright yellow or orange.

I'm not sure that that was always the case. I'm sure if you dig you'll find plenty of old observations of green meteors.

There has been much discussion of late about "green" meteors and
fireballs. The phenomena of the green meteor historically became a rally
point for observes in the 1940's under Lincoln LaPaz. And the "red
scare" of the 1950's. Now for the past year or so this colour green is
quite popular. Why? What is the significance for observers to view green
meteors? And can any one give an explanation about the composition of
the spectrum of a "green" meteor as opposed to the spectrum analysis of
a "bluish" fireball?

George John Drobnock

Source: METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

I recall viewing the Perseid meteor shower with veteran observer Felix Martinez
back in the early 80's. A majority of the bright meteors he saw back then were
green. To me, these meteors were nearly all white or slightly yellowish.
Definitely not green to me! So when two experienced observers see different
colors in the same meteors, one has to wonder just how subjective this topic
is...

Clear Skies!

Bob Lunsford

Source: METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

As mentioned there, colour perception is very subjective.

I recall my fellow meteor veteran Norman McLeod mentioning in the past
that observed meteor color is one of the most subjective parameters in
meteor watching. No two people see color the same way at low light levels
or for the very short periods of time that most meteors are seen. My
experience over the years tends to bare him out on that for sure.
Although I usually observe solo now, back in the 70s and 80s, I had many
group watches with both neophytes and experienced folks and rarely would
anyone agree on the color of an observed meteor. Bright fireballs tend to
"shock" the observer also and can lead to emotional reactions and
recollections that may not be entirely accurate.

Source: METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
Now many people describe them to be greenish. The combustion of what mineral/element is greenish, and why is it being seen now and never or rarely before?

To understand what is going on here, you should be aware that combustion is not involved in the process. There is simply not enough oxygen at the altitude where meteoroids are luminous.

Instead, meteoroids undergo a process known as ablation when they slam into atmospheric air molecules. This results in material being stripped from the meteoroid's outer layer, and both this material and the air being ionized. This ionized soup of particles emits light as the ions go from a high energy state to a lower one. The majority of this ion soup is composed of ions from atmospheric air.

It just happens to be the case that oxygen, when ionized emits light at a specific wavelength, which turns out to be green:

I don't believe there is much evidence to support the idea that meteor
color (as seen with the eye) has much relationship to the meteoroid
composition- at least, when we are talking about fireballs. There is
good evidence, however, that the color is mainly the from ionization of
atmospheric gas- especially oxygen. I've personally collected images of
several bright fireballs through a 501 nm narrow band (6 nm) filter,
which argues for a very strong [OIII] component to the light.

FWIW, a quick review of the meteor reports (nearly all fireballs) I've
received in the last 11 years shows this:

9110 reports total
3735 (41%) report some sort of color
3069 (82% of those reporting color) report some shade of green

I've long since concluded that bright fireballs are almost always green.
The exceptional cases are those which are not (and these are almost
always reported as white).

The only other color that tends to show up in witness descriptions is
red/orange, and a close look reveals that this is almost always at the
end of the path, when it is easily explained as the output of a cooling
blackbody radiator.

Chris

Source: METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list)

Here's some more reading on the subject: The photographed colours of Leonid meteors

reply to post by FireballStorm

---

Thanks for the education.

Mind if I ask how you became so knowledgeable about meteors?

reply to post by PlanetXisHERE

---

You're welcome.

Mostly by reading the posts of more experienced meteor observers/researchers on METEOROBS (The Meteor Observing mailing list), but also by spending time observing/photographing meteors and comparing results with others in the observing community.

It's not the only way to learn about the subject - you could follow the links I posted and read scientific papers etc, but I have found the feedback from the observing community invaluable, especially when I first became interested in the subject and my perception of the subject was a bit skewed. There's no substitute for someone more experienced in a particular subject pointing out the pitfalls, and there are plenty of those when it comes to meteors/meteor physics.

reply to post by PlanetXisHERE

---

Alls im getting tonight is a black graph does anyone else have the same problem?.
Also it says live feed and it always shows 1 hour earlier

Anyway the skys are overcast so im off to bed Damn weather

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