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Hundreds Spot Fireballs In Colorado, Nearby States

Posted by timothy on from the calling-all-coloradans dept.

pingpong writes "Hundreds of people in Colorado and 7 surrounding states have reported seeing "fireballs" in the night sky. They are described as being 10 to 15 times larger than a normal shooting star and bluish in color. Two people even claimed to see one land, but it has yet to be found. The Daily Camera is reporting it online here." Field reports invited.

14 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. Explanation needed by Drunken+Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think this guy owes us an explanation. Does he know something we should know?

    --
    Have you been stalked by Seth today?
  2. Better story by jasoncart · · Score: 5, Informative

    Over at the Denver Post

    1. Re:Better story by SEWilco · · Score: 3, Informative
      The usual meteor is a few millimeters, but its plasma plume is much larger. You can see an aircraft strobe at 30,000 feet (that's only 6 miles) but a meteor is much further and has to be brighter than that.

      The AMS has a FAQ on the subject which includes brightness info. It also points out that nickel tends to produce the green color.

      Also, there probably is a correlation between your bus-waiting guy and these other sightings. If you're in the northern hemisphere...there is more darkness right now than a few weeks ago. Easier to see meteors.

    2. Re:Better story by Brainless · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/eta_c etids.html

  3. Picture of the Fireballs by Grip3n · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you're like me, you *want* to see some pictures.

    http://www.cloudbait.com/science/fireballs.html

    Quite a bit of extra information is on this site as well.

    --
    To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
  4. Re:Could it be? by echosilex · · Score: 4, Informative

    Cu by itself burns blue/green, but CuCl2 is used to make the blue color seen in fireworks. Other copper compounds would work, too, but copper(II) chloride is the most common.

  5. There were a bunch of these in the UK this week by Varitek · · Score: 3, Informative

    BBC News story (scroll down a little)

  6. Re:Different directions? by ColaMan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually there is a term called the 'radiant' when discussing meteor showers - all the meteors in a particular stream will appear to come from the same patch of sky, radiating outwards.

    It's similar to bugs heading towards your windscreen - they all appear to originate from one point (ahead on the highway) but as they get closer they radiate out and hit different parts of the windscreen from your perspective.

    I presume that at this time the radiant was close to 90 degrees overhead - then they would appear to be heading in different directions.

    --

    You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
    There is a lot of hype here.
  7. Re:Witness by sniggly · · Score: 5, Informative

    with an almost horizontal trajectory that can happen, the object would be streaking through the medium layers of the atmosphere, all the while evaporating its layers until it expires in a puff or blows up because of too much heat. There's no sound because the explosion could happen quite far away in what is a relatively thin medium so there isn't much sound. I've seen one explode too and waited for what in my mind would be a big booming sound, but nothing came.

    --
    Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
  8. Re:Could it be? by Loligo · · Score: 5, Informative

    A quick Google for electric pickle turns up some pictures and even movies here.

    Along the same lines as the eletric pickle (but totally irrelevant to the rest of the topic), there's always the sparking grape trick.

    -l

  9. Fireballs in France too by dolmen.fr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hey, I'm not the only one to have seen this!!

    I live in France, in Choisy-le-Roi, at 12 km of Paris.
    At about 20:00 UTC (22:00 localtime) with (+-10 minutes of error), I've seen one fireball falling. I don't know the size and the distance at which it falled. But the direction was 170 degrees from my position. It didn't falled directly from up to down but with a small deviation from east to west.

    I've called the local autorithy (Gendarmerie Nationale) at about 23:40 (localtime) but they said they had no other report.

    Am I the only one to have seen this in France ?

    1. Re:Fireballs in France too by dolmen.fr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Correction: the small (less than 10 degrees) deviation was from west to east. 170 degrees is the azimuth of the land point.

      I've seen it trough a window, while watching TV. The land point was hidden to me by the house of one of my neighboors.

  10. Fireball in Russia also reported by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Apparently another one landed in Russia - there is a fresh impact crater reported at wired.com

  11. Re:No Photos? by andrewski · · Score: 2, Informative

    The 'they' that you refer to is retinal imprint - and it doesn't always go away. I have one from a flash in the face that has been with me for 15 years or so now.

    So, please don't shine a bright light directly into your eye. Not that you would anyway... Would you??