Ball of fire 'super big and bright,' possible meteor, seen falling out of sky over Seattle area

Originally posted by FireballStorm
reply to post by charlyv

 

Good analysis charlyv

It would be interesting to see how the average number of reports per event change over the years, which might give some clues as to what is.going on. I'd do it myself, but I have very little time to spare right now.

BTW - I believe you meant to say "must be at least -3 at horizon", since the atmospheric extinction is greater towards the horizon, so a -4 mag. meteor seen at the zenith would be around -3 mag, if seen at the horizon.

Correct on the -4, that is why they raised the bar at -3 zenith, just to level the playing field. The mag difference is logarithmic, so it is significant.

As of the latest figures, 100 or so are not categorized as yet and being analyzed. So we are Par now for 2011 in the beginning of November.

BTW: 2 of the most recent events are estimated -14 to -17 mag. Like the sun at night!

I will post one of the latest from the AMS, since I find it absolutely astounding and would pay just about anything to see a fireball like this:

The American Meteor Society has received over 60 reports of a bright meteor that occurred near 06:10 CDT on Tuesday morning October 30, 2012, over the southern mid-western states. Reports were received as far south as Alabama and Louisiana, as far north as Illinois, as far east as Kentucky and Tennessee, and as far west as Texas and Oklahoma. Brightness estimates of this fireball vary considerably, but the average lies near magnitude -13, which is equivalent to the light produced by the full moon. Several colors have been reported with green being the most predominant. Summaries of individual reports may be viewed in the 2012 AMS Fireball Table Refer to event #1677 for 2012. We are near the peak time of year for Taurid meteors, which are known to produce colorful fireballs. Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environments Office reports that this fireball was most likely a member of the Taurid meteor shower, which is active during October and November. He provides the following details: Event time: October 30 11:10:58 UTC (6:10:58 AM CDT) Initial speed: 24.3 km/s Final speed: 15 km/s Radiant: RA: +55, Dec: +13 Start point: 89.475 W, +35.444 at an altitude of 70.6 km (43.9 miles) End point: 88.673 W, +35.502 at an altitude of 29.2 km (18.1 miles)

This SOB had to have produced rocks. Where they may be is currently being investigated. One thing of importance here is that if a bolid like this had a more verticle fall from zenith, there probably would have been a hole somewhere. These type of meteors are becoming more frequent and i find it terribly exciting and frightful at the same time.

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by seamus

Originally posted by eriktheawful
reply to post by Sly1one

 

It might look exaggerated, but if anything, it's incomplete.

Each of those dots is as big as (or bigger than) Detroit, if they're rendered 'to scale'. That's exaggerated.

Sorry, no. The image is a representation of scale and amount. Not size. It would be impossible to show an image of the Earth like that with a diameter over 7,000 miles, and then show a dot the correct size for an object 2 inches big. It would be invisible.

Exactly. Invisible, rather than this star-obscuring swirl of giant space junk we're shown in the "illustration".

I'm too lazy to start a new thread, but a major meteor event occurred near Sheboygan this morning.
Kind of strange Popular Mechanics is reporting it??
Lots of cams caught it, is that US Route 43?


meteor over lake Michigan