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Meteor Streaks Over American East Coast
California doesn't get all the action; The Washington Post is one of many news outlets reporting that the east coast of North America got a good view of a meteor, with more than 300 sightings from Canada to Florida. Did you see it? If so, did you have your dashcam on? Update: 03/23 13:43 GMT by T : The meteor was captured at least by some security cameras, as reported by The Guardian.
russia got more action than california. just sayin'.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
But really now.. I have seen many fall this year driving home from work. One even lasted 5 seconds before burning out, and was brilliant white. (Saw it sometime in February.)
Do people on the coasts just have so much light pollution that anything other than a jumbojet or helicopter with running lights on causes excitement? Seriously, meteors happen all the time. The one that fell over russia was especially large, and had a lot of energy. That's why it was news. This one over the east coast just sounds like your garden variety to me.
What's all the buzz about?
Unless it made a sound, it's no big deal. I've been lucky enough to witness one meteor that made a sound. It was during a Perseid shower 20 years ago. A particularly bright one lit us up enough to cast a shadow. I turned just in time to see the tail end of it, then I heard a sound. It was as if the show put on a finale for us. After that, they were all just tiny streaks and then the shower was over for us.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing a fireball meteor in the earlghty 90's. I was 13 or so and night fishing. Saw light on the trees across the lake. Thought it was headlights at first, then realized it wasnt. It streaked overhead, then it was gonee behind the trees. Then there was a flash. After came the sound. Scared me a bit at first. Gave me my love of astronmy though.
Silence is a state of mime.
If a meteor strikes a big city, then USA could start the War on Space. Will still be madness, but at least this time won't be thousands of civil casualties because of it.
It's a well orchestrated conspiracy by astrophysicists to vastly increase their government funding. These fat-cat scientists must be stopped now!
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
...for common sense meteor control?
We cannot stand by and let these senseless meteors fall upon our great world... no! We must pass laws to require all meteor's that wish to pass within a parsec of us undergo a background check.
More so, we must declare the surface of the earth a "meteor free zone" and let it be known far and wide... that we do not allow meteor violence here!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
That'd actually be a good thing, really. I mean, it's short-term terrible about civilian casualties and the destruction of a city and all, but long-term, the investments in space technology and meteor detection would be vastly more positive for everyone in general than any of these other wars have been.
The Titanic had to sink before the fools listened to people saying "ships should have enough lifeboats for everyone, and the radio should always be on."
Hundreds of people had to burn to death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire before the fools listened to progressives saying "locking the doors is bullshit."
So yes, I fully expect that we're going to have to see a large city or small nation vaporized before the threat is taken seriously.
Yes, and how many people need to die from lightning before we build an iron dome to protect us from the weather?
Meteor impacts are very low probability events. Just because after thousands of years of human history we now are approaching the technology level to deal with meteors doesn't mean that the risk of meteors has changed. And if you are worried about extinction events, 99.999% of your attention should be focused on the ones that humans would cause (nuclear war, bioweapons release, etc.).