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Iowa residents say they saw and heard what appeared to be a meteor fly across the sky.
wildespace
Meteors happen every day, sometimes they are very bright. They are exciting to see (I'd love to see a fireball myself some day), but hardly world-worthy news.
The meteor that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February may not have been alone, new research suggests. According to Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, two brothers researching meteor and asteroid orbits at the Complutense University of Madrid, the meteor may have been just one member of an asteroid 'family' on similar orbits - with remaining family members still posing a threat to Earth.
The brothers came to this conclusion after comparing ten 'best estimates' of the Chelyabinsk meteor's orbit with the orbits of all asteroids catalogued by NASA. As an article to be published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters reveals, their search turned up around 20 potential siblings, including the large asteroid 2011 EO40, which is already listed by NASA as 'potentially hazardous'. The de la Fuente Marcos brothers suggest the Chelyabinsk meteor, 2011 EO40 and the other asteroids identified may all be fragments of a previous, larger body that broke up between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.
wildespace
Meteors happen every day, sometimes they are very bright. They are exciting to see (I'd love to see a fireball myself some day), but hardly world-worthy news.