Fireball over Oregon on 21st Nov 2009

Its probably a stray asteroid from the Leonid Meteor Shower that happened last week;
It was also reported that this years Leonid Meteor Shower was going to be mixed with another meteor cluster; I forgot the name of the other one;

I was standing outside for 2 hours watching the shooting stars/meteors;

reply to post by majick


Cheers majick, I think there's a good chance we can at least determine if it really was a meteor or not if you can obtain those frames.

Its probably a stray asteroid from the Leonid Meteor Shower that happened last week;
It was also reported that this years Leonid Meteor Shower was going to be mixed with another meteor cluster; I forgot the name of the other one;

Try not to confuse Leonids with asteroids. Annual meteor showers like the Leonids are cometary in origin. Cometary material has completely different characteristics to asteroids, which are generally much larger and harder than cometary meteoroids. Apples and oranges...

You are probably thinking of the Taurids which peaks just a few days before the Leonids, and this happens every year (although there may be variations in exact timings in peaks from year to year, as with any annual meteor shower). Don't forget there are also other showers as well as random/sporadic meteors/asteroidal material that can contribute to meteor activity at this time of year. Indeed, this time of year in the Northern hemisphere has the highest rate of sporadic (not connected to any known meteor shower) activity.

One thing is for sure, this could not have been a Leonid...

Because all meteoroids belonging to the same shower orbit the sun in concert with one another (they all travel in more or less the same direction), that means that at certain times of the day during the shower, part of the Earth is shielded from Leonid meteors (they can only hit one side of our Earth). This was the case at 10:30 PM local time in Oregon on the 21st.

On the other hand, a Taurid meteor remains a possibility, since the side of Earth that Oregon is on was in the right position for Taurid meteors to be seen in the sky above.

I was standing outside for 2 hours watching the shooting stars/meteors;

That's great! Hope you got to see some. If not, keep trying and you will, especially if you follow some of the tips for observing meteor showers that I always try to include when I make a post on an upcoming meteor shower in the Space Exploration forum. You can increase your chances of seeing something good many times if you follow these tips, and observe at the right times.

There was a video added to the thread which shows a fireball an South Africa on the 21st it could be the same one - maybe?

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


My friend will be taking an image of the area tomorrow when he is at work.

There was also video of a fireball in South Africa from the same date. It was posted on the same link.

reply to post by majick


The same one? Not likely.

There were around a couple of thousand miles (at a guess) separating these two events, so even if the event your friend captured was a meteor, they were just too far away from each other to be the same events.

Fireballs happen all the time somewhere in the world (the vast majority go unseen), so it would be no surprise that your friend captured a smaller one on the same night as a big one, especially at this time of year.