Meteor lights up early morning sky, alarms Utahns

Fri Nov 20, 2009 11:19 am » by **Nickelson**

SALT LAKE CITY -- A fast-moving meteor lit up the night skies over most of Utah just after midnight Wednesday. Moments later, the phones lit up at KSL as people across the state called to tell us what they saw and ask what it was.

Scientists are calling it a "remarkable midnight fireball." The source of all the excitement was basically a rock, falling from space.

In addition to KSL, witnesses to the meteor quickly began call 911.

"I'm currently driving, but I just saw a giant blue flash in the sky, and it came down into the city," a caller from Ogden said.

A caller in Bountiful told dispatchers, "It flashed from the west, and it lit up the whole freakin' neighborhood."

A Salt Lake City caller said, "Ma'am, I'm not kidding you. I am terrified."

Professor David Kieda is chair of the University of Utah's astronomy department. He said the energy of the meteor coming into Earth's atmosphere was so powerful it has to be measured in Terawatts.

"It's almost like the consumption of the United States all at once. It was a fraction of a second," Kieda said.

When a meteor enters the atmosphere, it gives off a lot of heat and light. Folks at the Clark Planetarium say this rock was big--between the size of a microwave and washer-dryer unit.

"I mean this thing lit up the sky, literally. It was like daylight." - Patrick Wiggins, NASA.

People from all over the western United States watched as the bolide meteor crashed into Earth's atmosphere. In some areas, the flash of light was so bright it caused light-sensor street lamps to shut off.

Clark Planetarium Director Seth Jarvis said the stony meteorite was probably traveling 80,000 miles an hour when it hit our atmosphere. He said it happened 100 miles up in the air; so despite the brightness, Utah was never in any danger.

"These collisions can do damage, but they are extremely rare; and literally once in a century do you observe something that's actually doing damage," he said.

Witness Andy Bailey said, "Oh, it lit up the whole sky, like almost brighter than the day. It was bright."

Don White was in Wyoming and told KSL Newsradio for a moment he suspected a nuclear strike. "With something that brilliant and that fast, it was like, whoa, did we just get hit or something? It would have been some bigger noise I guess if a nuclear device had gone off," he said.

"I've seen falling stars before, but nothing like that before," said witness James Albin.

KSL received reports that the light show was picked up as far away as Tucson, Santa Fe, Butte and Frisco Peak near Milford in southwest Utah.

The University of Utah has an observatory at 9,500 feet on Frisco Peak, which captured images of the fireball itself.

"All of the sudden the whole entire sky turned blue almost like lightning was striking." - Jon OlschewskiEveryone who saw it has a once-in-a-lifetime story.

Resident Jon Olschewski said, "I noticed to the left something streaking through the sky. It was this meteor that was exploding. It was breaking off into at least five big chunks."

Many surveillance systems captured the spectacular blast of light.

"When you got this mass coming through the atmosphere, and these things are going fast, it's like if you could travel that fast on I-15, you could get from Salt Lake to St. George in a matter of 5 seconds. So these things are really going, hits the atmosphere and it makes so much pressure on its leading edge that it just shatters itself," Jarvis explained.

Roy Merrell also saw the light. He said, "There was this flash in the room, the room basically just lit up."

Others recorded a sequence of shadows as fantastic as any Hollywood studio could create.

Patrick Wiggins, NASA Solar System Ambassador to Utah, said, "To realize it was up so high--people are thinking it's right close--but the thing was up so high it was seen between L.A., Las Vegas and, of course, all over Utah. I mean, this thing was way up there."

Scientists believe it was not part of the famous Leonid debris stream; instead a sporadic asteroid, a midnight fireball, which exploded in the atmosphere with an energy equivalent of up to one kiloton of TNT.

"It was almost, I could say, like celestial," Olschewski said. "You know what I mean? One of those kind of moments like 'oh my gosh,' like 'I'm not ready' kind of thing."

In Tooele County, residents reported that they felt that moment when the meteor shattered. Wiggins said it took about 5 minutes for the sonic boom, but said he's not surprised people felt it.

"Most meteors, you don't hear them, but this one was close enough and big enough that, yeah, you definitely heard the thing. It was exciting," he said.

In fact, seismology monitors at the University of Utah picked up the rumble from the air.

Wiggins said, from his calculations, the pieces of the meteor likely fell over Dugway. He said it's possible meteorites could also be found elsewhere. He said it can't hurt to look around your yard; if you happen to find one it could be worth thousands of dollars.

KSL also received video clips of the meteor from Utah residents.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=8714738

Fri Nov 20, 2009 11:32 am » by **Nickelson**

Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:46 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

ASTEROID CLOUD: The electric-blue "mystery cloud" seen twisting over Colorado and Utah at daybreak on Nov. 18th is no longer a mystery. It was asteroid debris.

http://spaceweather.com/
November 20, 2009

On Oct. 7, 2008, asteroid 2008 TC3 hit the atmosphere and exploded over Sudan, creating the cloud

On Nov. 18, 2009, a similar-sized asteroid hit the atmosphere and exploded over Colorado and Utah in a flash of light that startled onlookers across at least eight states. Hours later, daybreak revealed the "mystery cloud" pictured right. It looks just like the debris from 2008 TC3. Both clouds resemble icy noctilucent clouds that form naturally around Earth's poles during summer or in the aftermath of rocket launches.

animation http://aim.hamptonu.edu/outreach/sts119.html

Researchers have long suspected that space dust can prompt the formation of noctilucent clouds by acting as nucleation points for high-altitude ice crystals. Dusty debris from exploded asteroids may serve this purpose quite nicely. The explosion of 2008 TC3 in Oct. 2008 produced meteorites that were later recovered. The asteroid-blast of Nov. 2009 probably produced meteorites, too, although researchers aren't yet sure where they fell. Stay tuned for updates.

Mysterious, Glowing Clouds Appear Across America’s Night Skies
July 16, 2009
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/nightclouds/

Mysterious, glowing clouds previously seen almost exclusively in Earth’s polar regions have appeared in the skies over the United States and Europe over the past several days. Photographers and other sky watchers in Omaha, Paris, Seattle, and other locations have run outside to capture images of what scientists call noctilucent (”night shining”) clouds. Formed by ice literally at the boundary where the earth’s atmosphere meets space 50 miles up, they shine because they are so high that they remain lit by the sun even after our star is below the horizon. The clouds might be beautiful, but they could portend global changes caused by global warming. Noctilucent clouds are a fundamentally new phenomenon in the temperate mid-latitude sky, and it’s not clear why they’ve migrated down from the poles. Or why, over the last 25 years, more of them are appearing in the polar regions, too, and shining more brightly. “That’s a real concern and question,” said James Russell, an atmospheric scientist at Hampton University and the principal investigator of an ongoing NASA satellite mission to study the clouds. “Why are they getting more numerous? Why are they getting brighter? Why are they appearing at lower latitudes?”

Night Time Artificial Cloud Study Using NASA Sounding Rocket
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/CARE.html

A rocket experiment that may shed light on the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere was conducted from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on September 19, 2009. The experiment was launched on a NASA Black Brant XII Sounding Rocket The Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE) was conducted by the Naval Research Laboratory and the Department of Defense Space Test Program using a NASA four-stage Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket. Using ground based instruments and the STP/NRL STPSat-1 spacecraft, scientists will study an artificial noctilucent cloud formed by the exhaust particles of the rocket’s fourth stage at about 173 miles altitude. Ground based cameras and radars were based at various observation stations along the Atlantic coast and in Bermuda. Because of the optical observations, the launch required clear skies not only at Wallops but also at the multiple observation stations..

Glow Away: NASA Lights Up the East Coast Sky with a Noctilucent Cloud
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... sa-wallops

Physicists launch rocket to create the first faux "night-shining" cloud on the cusp of space. Scientists at the NRL and the U.S. Department of Defense Space Test Program set out to form and follow noctilucent clouds, as part of the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE). They built their rocket using 80s-era solid motors handed down from NASA. Then, when conditions were right, as they were on Saturday evening—meaning there were few natural clouds to obscure the view—the team launched their dust delivery system from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

What caused that cloud to glow so bright last night?
March 16, 2009 11:09 AM
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/we ... cloud.html

Here is NASA's official explanation for the glowing cloud: It wasn't really a cloud. It was part of the plume from space shuttle Discovery. "This was the remnants of the sun shining on the shuttle plume," said Allard Beutel, NASA spokesman, based at Kennedy Space Center. He said the sun set 12 minutes before the launch at 7:43 p.m. "As evening continued and darkness set in, the plume was still being lit by direct sunlight," Beutel said. "It's similar to why the moon shines so bright."

Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:52 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

Sonic boom’s source still a mystery
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
http://www.sunherald.com/278/story/1752 ... ni_popular

The boom that rattled windows in Pascagoula and Moss Point, swamped police phone lines and brought entire neighborhoods of people out of their homes to see what was happening was almost as much a mystery Wednesday as it was Tuesday night when it happened. Keesler Air Force base told city police around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday the boom was caused by military jets on a training exercise in the Gulf, but that the jets were not from Keesler. On Wednesday security at the base reconfirmed the jets had contacted the tower Tuesday night and were told there was a training exercise. But what jets, and whose jets were flying at supersonic speeds over the Gulf at night? Keesler didn’t know. Pensacola Naval Air Station’s Air Operations on the base said they weren’t flying anything fast enough to cause a sonic boom at present and suggested only the Air Force would have the F-15 or fighter jets that could fit that bill. They said Eglin AFB in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., was the best bet. As it turns out, Eglin is the base that controls military training ranges — airspace over the Gulf of Mexico used for military maneuvers in this part of the Gulf.

Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:07 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

Falling Ice Crashes Through Roof, Destroys Colorado Home
11/18/09 03:25 PM

BRUSH, Colo. — A basketball-sized chunk of ice crashed through the roof of a family's Colorado home after apparently falling from an airplane passing overhead. Danelle Hagan and her 9-year-old daughter were at home in Brush on Saturday when they heard the kitchen ceiling come crashing down. They were not injured. "I hear a huge, what sounded like an explosion. And I look over and my kitchen is basically in shambles," Hagan told KMGH-TV in Denver. "It was very terrifying." The Federal Aviation Administration was sending investigators to the home to investigate whether the ice came from an airplane. The Hagans put some of the ice in their freezer.

Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:13 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-129

STS-129 (ISS assembly flight ULF3) is the current Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis launched successfully on November 16, 2009, at 14:28 Eastern: UTC -5. STS-129 will focus on staging spare components outside the station. The 11-day flight is scheduled to include at least three spacewalks. The payload bay will carry two large ExPRESS Logistics Carriers holding two spare gyroscopes, two nitrogen tank assemblies, two pump modules, an ammonia tank assembly, a spare latching end effector for the station's robotic arm, a spare trailing umbilical system for the Mobile Transporter, and a high-pressure gas tank. This will be the first flight of an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier. The completion of this mission will leave five space shuttle flights remaining until the end of the program. NASA held its first-ever live Shuttle launch tweetup with 100 members of the general public at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

STS-129 Mission Patch
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shutt ... patch.html

For STS-129 the sun shines brightly on the International Space Station (ISS) above and the United States below, representing the bright future of U.S. human spaceflight. The integrated shapes of the patch signify the two EXPRESS logistics carriers that will be delivered by STS-129. Vividly silhouetted by the sun, the space shuttle represents the orbiters' stellar performance for the U.S. space program. The space shuttle ascends on the astronaut symbol portrayed by the red, white and blue swoosh bounded by the gold halo. This symbol is worn with pride by this U.S. crew representing their country on STS-129. The names of the crew members are denoted on the outer band of the patch. As STS-129 launches, the space shuttle is in its twilight years. This fact is juxtaposed by the 13 stars on the patch, symbolizing the crewmembers' children who are the future. The moon and Mars represent just how close humankind is to reaching further exploration of those heavenly bodies, and how the current space shuttle and ISS missions are laying the essential ground work for those future endeavors.

Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:33 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1783 ... index.html

This year's Leonid meteor shower peaks on Tuesday, Nov. 17th. If forecasters are correct, the shower should produce a mild but pretty sprinkling of meteors over North America followed by a more intense outburst over Asia. The phase of the Moon will be new, setting the stage for what could be one of the best Leonid showers in years.

"We're predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "Our forecast is in good accord with independent theoretical work by other astronomers."
Leonids are bits of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Every 33 years the comet visits the inner solar system and leaves a stream of dusty debris in its wake. Many of these streams have drifted across the November portion of Earth's orbit. Whenever we hit one, meteors come flying out of the constellation Leo. "We can predict when Earth will cross a debris stream with pretty good accuracy," says Cooke. "The intensity of the display is less certain, though, because we don't know how much debris is in each stream." Caveat observer! The first stream crossing on Nov. 17th comes around 0900 UT (4 a.m. EST, 1 a.m. PST). The debris is a diffuse mix of particles from several old streams that should produce a gentle display of two to three dozen meteors per hour over North America. Dark skies are recommended for full effect. "A remarkable feature of this year's shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars," notes Cooke.It's just a coincidence. This year, Mars happens to be passing by the Leonid radiant at the time of the shower. The Red Planet is almost twice as bright as a first magnitude star, so it makes an eye-catching companion for the Leonids: sky map.

The next stream crossing straddles the hour 2100-2200 UT, shortly before dawn in Indonesia and China. At that time, Earth will pass through a pair of streams laid down by Comet Tempel-Tuttle in 1466 and 1533 AD. The double crossing could yield as many as 300 Leonids per hour. "Even if rates are only half that number, it would still be one of the best showers of the year," says Cooke. The Leonids are famous for storming, most recently in 1999-2002 when deep crossings of Tempel-Tuttle's debris streams produced outbursts of more than 1000 meteors per hour. The Leonids of 2009 won't be like that, but it only takes one bright Leonid streaking past Mars to make the night worthwhile.

Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:36 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/recent/uu00004625_l.html

Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:49 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk_-jpk4wMQ

One time a thing occurred to me
what's real, and what's for sale?
blew a kiss and tried to take it home
It isn't you, isn't me
search for things you can't see
going blind, out of reach
somewhere in the vasoline
Two times and it has rendered me
punch drunk and without bail
think I'd be safer all alone
flies in the vasoline we are
sometimes it blows my mind
keep getting stuck here all the time
You'll see the look and you'll see the lies
you'll eat the lies, and you will.
It isn't you, isn't me
search for things you can't see
going blind, out of reach
somewhere in the vasoline.

Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:14 pm » by **Dirttyrabbit**

Low - spock you guys are Vector artist you design logos right?
you guys dont see anything in that NASA patch?