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Irish Astronomers Investigate Sky Explosion

Posted by timothy on from the stopping-snake-attacks-since-400-AD dept.

puroresu writes "Astronomers in Ireland have appealed to the public to contact them with eyewitness accounts of a massive explosion in the sky over the country. From the BBC: 'Astronomy Ireland chairman David Moore said: "So far, reports have been registered by residents in west Cork, Kerry, Cavan and as far north as Donegal, thus suggesting that this spectacular event may have been witnessed by people all over the country. In the past two decades there have been two major explosions in the skies over Ireland. When we investigated these, we were able to conclude that one was a Russian military satellite that exploded over the country, and the other was a rock from space."'"

25 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Spots by s1lverl0rd · · Score: 4, Funny

    Of all the spots our new overlords can land, they coose *Ireland?* Geesh.

    1. Re:Spots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Of all the spots our new overlords can land, they coose *Ireland?* Geesh.

      Now I'm terrified, why are our new Overlords going to *coose* us?

    2. Re:Spots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, Ireland is actually atlantis, see.

    3. Re:Spots by BlindRobin · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's possible they've come for the stouts and porters that have slurred the previous posters keyboard.

    4. Re:Spots by Sumbius · · Score: 2, Funny

      Of all the spots our new overlords can land, they coose *Ireland?* Geesh.

      I for one welcome our Irish coosing overlords.

    5. Re:Spots by mrops · · Score: 2, Funny

      This story is Bullshit,.

      I have been following a documentary where they found Atlantis in another Galaxy and there are life sucking aliens investation there.

  2. To whoever tagged story as uk by andyh3930 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Learn geography. Ireland in not in the UK, Northern Ireland is, but the Republic of Ireland isn't.

    1. Re:To whoever tagged story as uk by wrook · · Score: 5, Informative

      Reminds me of a time I was working in London. When I first started one of the guys asked me, "Are you American". I replied, "No Canadian". He just said, "Same thing."

      So, I asked him: "Are you English" and he said, "No I'm Irish." I said, "Same thing".

      I still marvel at the fact that I'm still alive... ;-)

    2. Re:To whoever tagged story as uk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Besides him being correct and you not you mean?

      Canada is in the americas. Ireland is not in England.

    3. Re:To whoever tagged story as uk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ok, then call an Irishman "British," because Ireland is in the British Isles. *NOW* do you see his point?

    4. Re:To whoever tagged story as uk by slashmojo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America, and some parts of Europe including Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent

    5. Re:To whoever tagged story as uk by erroneous · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "People" have a long tradition of being oppressive cunts.

      Every society, religion, race or creed that's had the opportunity has gone ahead and done it. It's human nature - human nature that we should attempt to change as we civilise ourselves - but it's not specifically English behaviour.

      --
      erroneous: look me up in a dictionary
    6. Re:To whoever tagged story as uk by Fieryphoenix · · Score: 2, Informative

      The inhabitants of a country are the authority on how to they are "properly" addressed. Americans are properly Americans because that is how they identify themselves. It is a name, not a geographical description, and hence ultimately determined by the named, even though names are normally bestowed.

      And yes, it is common for other languages to use terms other than what natives call themselves, and are still being proper in their speech. This does not, however, make the natives wrong in their usage.

    7. Re:To whoever tagged story as uk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ireland is not in the British Isles, The term British Isles is not acceptable within the Republic of Ireland and increasingly with Britain itself.

  3. Robin Williams by Joebert · · Score: 2

    I can't help but think of Robin Williams calling up with his drunken Irish golfer accent to explain "a huge fuckin' fireball in tha sky".

    --
    Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
    1. Re:Robin Williams by alzoron · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It isn't that American university degrees aren't completely suspect. The majority of graduates from our universities are actually fairly bright individuals. The problem is that there the three ways to get a degree are to either be rich and donate a lot of money, bring fame to the school in some way, or genuinely be intelligent. The first two ways only really comprise a small fraction, the only problem is that they generate an inversely greater amount of attention. This is mostly what lends to the American universities are bullshit attitude that we see thrown around most of the time.

      Now I'm not saying that famous people and rich people are inherently stupid, but their actual intelligence usually doesn't factor into their acceptance most of the time.

    2. Re:Robin Williams by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't think it's that. University covers quite a broad range of quality - some of them are a very long way from Harvard or MIT.

      [cue argument about whether Yale and Berkely are better...]

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Robin Williams by Atrox666 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Do you not think that poor girl got hit in the face with a lot of dick before she got that far?
      The poor girl might have been concussed by that point.

  4. no telescope by backslashdot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Too bad the Leviathan of Parsonstown is not in operation and they let it rot, maybe they'd have been able to track it properly.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_of_Parsonstown

  5. False alarm ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... it was just my iPod exploding. Again.

  6. Idiocracy by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Funny

    and the other was a rock from space

    A meteor, in other words?

    Damn idiocracy.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    1. Re:Idiocracy by anarchyboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Planets that are visible by the naked eye and look like stars are often called stars even though we now know they are not, like venus for example. also some of the 'stars' in the night sky may be galaxies and shooting stars have nothing to do with stars either. Calling twinkly points of light in the sky stars even if they're something else is not uncommon.

    2. Re:Idiocracy by digitig · · Score: 2, Informative

      It started out with "star" status -- in classical terms it was specifically a wandering star (mods, please mod any Lee Marvin references down!)

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  7. There's a slightly better article by Vexar · · Score: 5, Informative
    http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/278826 I think what happened here was that the BBC found the Digital Journal article, got famously sloppy, and reprinted a dumbed down version. I think the Slashdot community needs to do what it can for the astronomy groups in Ireland (North or otherwise). There's been more debate over whether a skit from decades ago was about an Irishman or a Scotsman than discussion of the actual article. Granted, neither article has anything more than several people reporting seeing an explosion in the night sky (apparently while watching Jupiter), but is there any follow-up?

    Well, yes there is: http://www.mail-archive.com/meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com/msg77530.html So, a meteorite, or if you read the BBC papers, a "space rock." Let's at least pretend we care about the news, not being our usual, fitful selves.

  8. Fireball forensics by clyde_cadiddlehopper · · Score: 4, Informative

    Two good observations are sufficient for triangulation. CCD equipped all-sky cameras and run-of-the-mill security cameras are watching about everywhere. Without multiple images, here's a trajectory analysis based on sound (sonic booms?) at seismic stations.

    --
    Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden