Rare, Unexplained Daytime Fireball Scorches Texas Sky

Tue Apr 10, 2012 9:50 pm » by **99socks**

Rare, Unexplained Daytime Fireball Scorches Texas Sky

A great ball of fire streaked across the Texas sky during the daytime last week, much to the surprise of thousands of people who witnessed it. So bright that it looked "like a little piece of the sun falling," as one San Antonio resident told the local news station, the rare daytime meteor event was yet another example of the scientific mystery known as spring fireball season.

According to NASA, 30 years of observations show that there's a consistent uptick in the number of fireballs — meteors that glow brighter than the planets as they scorch through Earth's atmosphere — during the spring compared with other times of the year. "There are two peaks: one around February and the other at the end of March and early April," said Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "And this remains a mystery."

The Texas event was bright enough to have corresponded to the atmospheric burnup of a space rock at least a yard across, Cooke told Life's Little Mysteries. But no one knows why springtime meteors are 10 to 30 percent more common. "I can tell you a lot of the bright and slow fireballs appear to be coming from the direction opposite the sun, but they have not much in common other than that," he said. "You see a lot more ordinary meteors in the fall, but the spring seems to have the big slow movers — the ones that are really impressive."

To tackle the mystery, Cooke and his NASA colleagues have set up a network of "smart meteor cameras" around the United States that they use to triangulate the trajectories of meteors, pinning down their positions to within the area of a football field as they enter the atmosphere. This has enabled the scientists to map the origins of falling space rocks from different parts of the sky.

The approximately 1,800 meteor events recorded by the camera network so far indicate that the spring fireballs probably originate from asteroids, while fall meteors come from comets. "The [spring fireballs'] orbits indicate they come from the main asteroid belt. A lot of the smaller meteors in the fall come from comets, which are made of icy bits of dust, and they don't last long in the atmosphere. Those ones are generally not big enough to make fireballs."

Once sufficient data has been collected, the scientists expect a pattern to emerge that will reveal the reason for spring fireball season, or the fact that Earth seems to encounter more asteroidal material in the spring. "It appears that a lot of the stuff out there in the asteroid belt is clumping up in the springtime more than other times of the year," he said.

The other hope is that the network's precision will improve to the point that a fireball's trajectory can be calculated accurately enough to locate and retrieve a meteorite on the ground after it has fallen. That would allow scientists to study what the chunk of asteroidal material is made of, and to trace it back to the asteroid from which it came.

http://news.yahoo.com/rare-unexplained-daytime-fireball-scorches-texas-sky-153009282.html

Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:01 pm » by **Mob 2,0**

Rare, Unexplained Daytime Fireball Scorches Texas Sky

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/24389 ... Texas-Sky-

Fireball Season

Socks

Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:04 pm » by **E6722maj**

there's a lot of it about :think:

.

Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:35 pm » by **Knownawareness**

OP: Interesting post it goes along with this strange object seen across most of New Zealand on the 2nd of April 2012.

It seems too controlled to be a meteor.

Upload to Disclose.tv

Knownawareness

Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:21 pm » by **Switchtrip**

post762025.html#p762025

Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:32 pm » by **Poe2you**

I find it interesting they can tell you about planetary systems light years from Earth, they can nearly image them, try to determine their atmospheres and mass, as well as distance from parent star. They use Hubble to look closely at the other planets, can tell you all about the sun, they track tens of thousands of pieces of space debris, have a NEO program, but about objects that actually collide with Earth supposedly every year for 30 years of observation - then they state:

"But no one knows why springtime meteors are 10 to 30 percent more common"

as well as...

"And this remains a mystery"

They wait thirty years to tell us that Spring is fireball season and February and April are the busiest months - and they dont know why they happen? Maybe it is just the timing, in that you need 30 years of observation to make a scientific determination, but why announce it now, in 2012 of all years? Why not in 2011, or 2013, and why not with absolute certainty?

:headscratch:

Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:44 pm » by **Mob 2,0**

poe2you wrote:I find it interesting they can tell you about planetary systems light years from Earth, they can nearly image them, try to determine their atmospheres and mass, as well as distance from parent star. They use Hubble to look closely at the other planets, can tell you all about the sun, they track tens of thousands of pieces of space debris, have a NEO program, but about objects that actually collide with Earth supposedly every year for 30 years of observation - then they state:

"But no one knows why springtime meteors are 10 to 30 percent more common"

as well as...

"And this remains a mystery"

They wait thirty years to tell us that Spring is fireball season and February and April are the busiest months - and they dont know why they happen? Maybe it is just the timing, in that you need 30 years of observation to make a scientific determination, but why announce it now, in 2012 of all years? Why not in 2011, or 2013, and why not with absolute certainty?

Sorry For All The Claps M8 :oops:

Cheers

Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:58 pm » by **domdabears**

Mystery Fireball in Texas Actually a Jet Contrail, NASA Scientist Says

A bright object that streaked across the Texas sky during the day April 4, originally believed to be a meteor burning up as it entered Earth's atmosphere, was actually a flying jet and its contrail, a NASA scientist has confirmed.

http://news.yahoo.com/mystery-fireball- ... 04693.html

Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:09 am » by **Poe2you**

I saw one just like this tonight over the skies of Illinois. Was NOT a plane. I am Northwest of Ohare near Wisconsin and am quite a familiar with their patterns and altitudes and this was no damn plane. Chunks of the fireball were firing in the tail, like very large puffs of smoke and very unevenly, not like a contrail. Whitish green head in color and tail was thick and about 10 times longer than the diameter of the fireball. Very bright and very cool.

One sure thing about NASA, Never A Straight Answer :dunno:

Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:11 am » by **Noentry**

poe2you wrote:I saw one just like this tonight over the skies of Illinois. Was NOT a plane. I am Northwest of Ohare near Wisconsin and am quite a familiar with their patterns and altitudes and this was no damn plane. Chunks of the fireball were firing in the tail, like very large puffs of smoke and very unevenly, not like a contrail. Whitish green head in color and tail was thick and about 10 times longer than the diameter of the fireball. Very bright and very cool.

One sure thing about NASA, Never A Straight Answer

that is cool, always good to have an eyewitness account of an event such as this
:cheers: