Irish Astronomers Investigate Sky Explosion

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."'"

Comments

Spots

[s1lverl0rd]

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

Re:Spots

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Spots

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Ireland is actually atlantis, see.

To whoever tagged story as uk

[andyh3930]

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

Re:To whoever tagged story as uk

[wrook]

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... ;-)

no telescope

[backslashdot]

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

False alarm ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Idiocracy

[Jugalator]

and the other was a rock from space

A meteor, in other words?

Damn idiocracy.

Re:Idiocracy

[anarchyboy]

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.

There's a slightly better article

[Vexar]

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.

Re:Robin Williams

[Atrox666]

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.

Fireball forensics

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

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.