Fireball Over Wales

nagora writes "After last weeks meteor strike on an Indian village, Astronomy Picture of the Day has a spectacular photo of a fireball over Wales. Come home to a real fire..."

Comments

Green fireball

[ballpoint]

On a summer evening in the center of Belgium some five years ago my brother-in-law and I saw a very bright, green-glowing (slashdot color, but much brighter) object zooming overhead from the south to the east. We thought a crash was imminent; it was quite threatening even if it didn't make any noise.

Unfortunately I haven't found any references to it anywhere. I'm pretty sure others must have seen it too.

This Wales fireball seems even more impressive though.

Re:Green fireball

[GigsVT]

It probably had a lot of copper in it, copper burns green.

If you ever see another one, contact local astronomers to report it, they get off on that sort of thing, and want people to report fireball sightings.

Re:Green fireball

[Bishop923]

Chances are, what you saw was a Bolide they can often glow brighter than the full moon.

Re:Green fireball

[Strange Ranger]

Reminds me of an event in my back yard about a month ago (in north eastern US):

I was looking for mars but found it on the opposite side of the sky from where it really was. This object didn't move, but grew very bright, brighter than the real mars a month ago. It grew extremely bright over the period of about 30 seconds. Maybe 5x the brightness and size of Mars's best showing this year. Then it quickly faded to nothing. Only thing I can think of is a meteor that was coming directly at me, as it didn't move at all, only grew and shrunk.

I'd love to know what the heck it was.

Remeber Kids

[kinnell]

Don't do high energy physics experiments in your mothers microwave without taking the appropriate safety precautions

Re:Remeber Kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do high energy physics experiments in your mothers microwave without taking the appropriate safety precautions.

Two men are surprised to meet in mid-air, one plummeting downward toward the ground while the other soars higher upward. As they pass, the first yells out "Do you know anything about parachuting?" The second shouts back, "No! Do you know anything about gas barbecues?"

Re:Fireball

[mhesseltine]

This is the most interesting thing to happen in Wales.

You seem to forget the birth of Katherine Zeta-Jones. Mmmmmmm......

Come home to a real fire...

[dontod]

...buy a holiday home in wales.

For those who don't remeber / know 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' it's where Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean, Blackadder) got his break on TV.

Don.
-------
Don't say revenge. Don't say revenge. Ummm.. revenge? Okay, that's it. I'm outta here. *step step step step step..door slam*

...Buy a cottage in Wales

[carndearg]

Very impressive picture, kudos to the kid who took it. I am curious to know though whether any of the pieces of the object would have made it to earth or whether in such events they merely pass through the outer atmosphere in a blaze of glory. I am guessing that a "sofa sized" object would have quite a lot of energy and would cause quite some destruction had it struck the earth in one piece.

"Come home to a real fire" in the context of Wales made me laugh though. Back in the 1980s it was the slogan used to advertise coal fires, and at the time the extreme fringe of the Welsh Nationalists were burning down holiday cotages in North Wales owned by absentees.

I cant remember who it was, might have been "Not the 9 o'clock news", ran a spoof of the coal fire ads, "Come home to a real fire, buy a cottage in Wales"

You young folks might not know

[falsification]

You young folks might not know what that is. You might even be scared. Well, let me tell you. That thar fireball warn't caused by no rock fallin from the sky. That thar was a dragon.

During the 2001 Leonids,

[JeanPaulBob]

I saw one meteor flash so brightly, a friend of mine saw his silhouette on the ground (he was adjusting the blanket he was sitting on at the time). The meteor left a debris trail visible for minutes afterward. A NASA image gallery has several pictures of the trail, including one animated sequence.

I always wondered what happened when .....

[rawdirt]

everyone flused the toilets in a 747 at one time ;)

Lesson learned

[NanoGator]

Well, I'd say this photo has taught us all a lesson. When the guy next to you on the plane says "Pull my finger", politely decline.

I saw one _just_now_ outside, in DC

[blakespot]

I just went outside to bring some food back to eat at my desk as I work here, programming in Washington DC. As I was making the 3 block walk to my normal lunch spot, I saw a glare out of the corner of my eye and looked up and indeed a bright fireball was almost directly overhead - this was not 1 hr ago!!

I did not make out a tale due to the sheer brightness of the fireball but after some time I was able to determine that it is slowly headed west, having approached DC from the Atlantic, presumably. A co-worker claims she saw it just crawling over the horizon this morning at about 7am. It is far, far brighter than the full moon, I can tell you with certainty.

What is going on with all these fireballs?

blakespot