April Fireballs!

[honeybee]

BBC - Gloucestershire - About Gloucestershire - April Fireballs

[Steve149c]

How interesting? One option not explored in the BBC article - what about returning space debris? It's travelling alot slower than a meteor, hence why it stayed in sight longer, rather than shooting from horizon to horizon in a few seconds. Perhaps from the latest rocket that sent 'Scotty' (RIP) into space?

Steve

[Owl-Light]

Fascinating. Wish I'd seen them.

[Rich_]

This could possibly explain something I saw a couple of years ago, over the Solway Firth which I had put down to some kind of UFO sighting!

Can't remember the time of year but it was just getting dusk at about 9pm, and there was a bright orange light, probably 2 or three times the size Venus appears, moving parallel to the horizon about 45 degrees above it at about the speed an aircraft crosses the sky , in a Northerly direction. Before loosing sight of it, it seemed to eject a short burst of about 4 or 5 smaller orange lights (a bit like tracer shells from a gun) down towards the sea which faded about half way down.

There was no cloud cover so I could not gauge its height and it was not a distress flare, so it could easily have been in the upper atmosphere.

[The Woodman]

I saw a similar thing Rich a couple of years ago over Morecambe Bay. A meteorite travelling horizontally from the east to the south and splitting into two. I could hear the crackling as it passed through my arc of vision. I've seen hundreds of these thing over the years but have never been able to put a distance to them.

[carlos_dfc]

That sounds like a classic fireball meteor Rich - a fantastic (and rare) sight.
I'm outside - looking upwards - on most cloudless nights - for quite a lot of years now, and have only managed to see about 6 or 7 (outside of major meteor showers)

What happens is that the 'shock' pressure at the front of the meteor, as it punches it's way through the air, causes the main body of the meteor to fragment.
The fragments cannot escape the 'tunnel' that the meteor has made through the air, so they must go so far backwards, along the 'hole' that the meteor has made, before thay can fall earthwards.
These flashes are commonly known as 'shooters'

Those in the article, co-incided with the Lyrid meteor shower - which is known to produce more than it's fair share of fireballs.
Most people don't realise, but we are constantly being bombarded with small pieces of debris like this - and a meteor, even a big fireball meteor, can occur at any time.
There are also several regular 'showers' that occur when the earth passes through the trail of debris left beind by a comet - in fact these showers are happening almost constantly, it's just that most of then don't give spectacular shows, and so, don't become very well known.
We are curently 'in' the Sagittarid shower, which started mid-April, peaks around May 20th, and continues into July - maximum is only about 5/hr though, and most are small.
Next big, well-known, shower, probably the Perseids (12-13 August)

[Rich_]

I have wondered about what I saw because I have seen many shooting stars / meteors, and because of the slow speed of this object, I was puzzled, although I knew of fireballs I had no idea how they behaved.

[Steve149c]

Meteor showers are amazing - luckily I work at sea, and being away from all sources of light makes an amazing show.

This should help those of you whom what to see the showers (from the UK)

How to Watch Meteor Showers

Steve

[carlos_dfc]

Originally Posted by Rich_

although I knew of fireballs I had no idea how they behaved.

My own personal 'best' fireball, was about 3 yrs ago.
I was out in the garden with a telescope (as usual on a clear night) - looking into the eyepiece, I noticed the ground around me starting to lighten, I looked up, and this thing was coming from the North - heading across to the East.
A very bright orangey nucleus (bright enough to make the ground lighten up discernably) - clouds of smoke seemed to be billowing from around the head, leaving a long trail behind it - but no sound, which seemed weird at the time.
Took about 30 seconds to cross the sky and disappear over some low clouds to my East, and I counted 6 'shooters' during the time I watched it - The trail lingered for a good 5 mins or more, slowly dispersed a bit like an aircraft contrail (but was much thicker)

It seemed to move very slow to me, and I was also puzzled by that - but not long after, I attended a very informative presentation at a local Star-party, all about meteors/meteorites, and some of the best footage of big fireballs was remarkably similar to the one I was lucky enough to spot.

[Owl-Light]

Originally Posted by Steve149c

Meteor showers are amazing - luckily I work at sea, and being away from all sources of light makes an amazing show.

This should help those of you whom what to see the showers (from the UK)

How to Watch Meteor Showers

Steve

Useful link Steve, I've bookmarked it.