Meteor Spotted Yesterday Over Midwestern United States 163
the1337g33k writes "The National Weather Service is reporting that a fireball that many people witnessed last night is a meteor that entered the atmosphere last night around 10:10 pm Central Time. This meteor was spotted by many in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois."
Calm down, fanboys (Score:5, Funny)
It wasn't an Autobot.
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Please tell me it doesn't involve Bruce Willis.
Re:Calm down, fanboys (Score:4, Funny)
Gobots [wikipedia.org]?
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Then there is only one other possibilty!
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... oh, it's a meteor. Never mind.
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...it's the chevy nova...lighting up the night sky...
---Fry
I thought (Score:3, Funny)
this was just GameStation coming to claim their recently acquired souls [slashdot.org]..
Large Meteor Yesterday Over Midwestern US... (Score:2)
...Thousands of people caught at awkward moments now traumatized for life.
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If he's hinting at what I think...no one on slashdot.
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...burning the midnight oil doing something else other than that... Yeah, that's it.
What, filing their taxes late? I don't get it...
Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:4, Funny)
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no no no... I heard the Star Wars theme........... or maybe it was the theme from Superman........
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If, instead of a meteorite, you find a very large cylinder, you should run away.
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Don't sell that meteor (Score:2)
That belongs in a museum!
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According to "Meteorite Men", the Geek version of Home Shopping Network, meteorite fragments are worth $20/gram as a basic value. If you get a big piece that has shape to it, you could expect more. Multiple fragments that fit together (where it fragmented in the atmosphere, not from a hammer) would also logically fetch more, as would rare types.
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Why would you sell something like that?
It's a once in a lifetime find (potentially) and i'd want to keep it on my shelf somewhere. It'd be a great coffee table piece.
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Other than the cash (Who wouldn't want the cash?) there's that whole pesky contributing to science thing.
I'd take a billion pictures of it and then sell it to the highest bidder.
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Yeah, the highest bidder is surely a scientist.
Re:Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:4, Informative)
"It's a once in a lifetime find (potentially)"
Go out to the Lucerne dry lake bed, or any desert spot in southern California, and with a good pair of binocs you can pretty much just spot them sitting out in the open.
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Damn, and I just sold my magnets collection on eBay!
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There was a good show on this, I believe on the Discovery Channel. There's an art (and science) to searching debris fields. They had assembled a large loop to be a metal detector attached to a PVC pipe frame that they dragged behind their truck. If you know the direction it came in, and a likely impact site, you can start hunting. You have an advantage that you know at least one part of the debris field. I'd guess that area is mountainous, so a tow behind metal detector is probably out,
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And I'm guessing that you've never been anywhere near Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa or Indiana
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What exactly would those places have to do with Sonora Pass in California? What I do know of California landscape is that there are vast areas of flat lands, and mountainous areas. I lived in a house on the outskirts of Los Angeles that if you stepped off the back porch, you were on a > 45 degree incline down a couple hundred feet. That was just a foothills area. Not far from there, you could drive up to 7,000 feet, and if you were to go very far off the road (5 to 50 feet), you'd find
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Re:Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh Clark, what are you worried about?
Re:Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wrong bad guy? (Score:2)
Blame Kane and build more harvesters.
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Too late! However, the lively gentlemen gave me a dozen copies of Windows 7 and a really handsome chair.
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Oh, Jordy Verrill, you lunkhead!
Re:Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:5, Informative)
If any dotters have a taste for adventure and have a weekend to kill near the area that this impacted, you should go out and see what you can find. It might pay off.
FYI - Before you go wandering around the hillsides looking for rocks, keep in mind that anything you find properly belongs to the landowner.
Proper rock hunters spend a lot of effort to get all the proper permissions for their searches.
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Would a tree that grows on their land after they buy it not be theirs?
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It's an IFO! (Score:1)
An Identified Flying Object...FLEE!
15 minutes or 15 seconds? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I just saw the video on TV a couple hours ago. I was joking that it wasn't a meteorite. There are distinct flashes that were its deceleration thrusters firing. :) I love starting conspiracy theories. :)
For what I saw of it, CNN probably screwed up when they said 15 minutes. Otherwise, it would have spun half way around the world on its entry.
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Apparently 15 minutes: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/5614609-meteor-stands-still-for-15-minutes-in-iowa-pictures [allvoices.com]
People of Iowa and neighboring cities were surprised by a meteor shower on Wednesday night. The fireball resembling meteor is captured in a picture by an Iowa resident - that is believed to be a part of the meteor shower. This meteor wasn't like a flash - it appeared at 10 p.m. and stayed there for good 15 minutes!
According to the National Weather Service, the meteor was moving from we
Re:15 minutes or 15 seconds? (Score:4, Informative)
15 minutes is a looooong time. For how long would you be able to make out a jet air-liner?
Since the meteor was making multiple sonic booms (realistically that's really bits breaking off and making their own booms), we're looking at a minimum of mach 1. That means it'll cover an absolute minimum distance of 306 km from the time it was first seen as standing still until it disappeared. Now, obviously the object needs to be at a fair distance already, for that to be the case. It can't start overhead, as that will mean it's moving.
And how far can you really see?
Also, 306 km is a HUGE distance. The smallest detail we can make out are about 1 arc minute. At 306 km that is 89 meters. Granted, it's glowing/burning, so that should help, but how much? 10 fold? Would you be able to make out a 9 meter fireball at 300 km?
And I'm rather curious to know, just how far a meteor would actually travel during those 15 minutes.
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Yes, that is sort of my point. I'm extremely sceptical that it is possible to see any meteor for 15 minutes, unless it has landed and you're staring at it.
It's entry speed is a minimum of 11 km/s. Obviously it will slow down, but what is the longest possible route it can take through the atmosphere? I.e. we know the height of the atmosphere that matters (as far as I remember, they don't start burning until they're below 90 km).
And even if completely unrealistic, we'd also need it to pretty much skim the sur
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According to the Wikipedia entry on the SR-71 [wikipedia.org], the canopy would top 300C, but then goes on to say this:
But at what temperatures will a rock meteor start melting, let alone burn? Lava is typically 700 to 1,200 C, but that's still not burning up. The
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Just to expand it a bit, I just stumbled across this link:
The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball [unipr.it].
One of four scientifically observed Earth grazing fireballs [wikipedia.org].
Speed before the encounter was 15.083 +- 0.019 km/s, and afterwards it was 14.208 +- 0.005 km/s. This is the slowest one on the list, and it would travel 12,600 km in 15 minutes. Even at half that speed, there is no way you can observe anything at 6,000 km distance, unless it's straight up, in which case it's not glowing any more and thus impossible to see.
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Another thing ... where is the substantiating claims in that article? It's just some guy claiming it.
There are no links to any other reports, no pictures to substantiate the claim, nothing.
In other news, people in Iowa have seen purple flying pigs carrying off an SUV.
Kryptonyte! (Score:2)
A couple of decades ago while travelling I saw a spectaculat shooting star. It was bright green and flashing erratically, and looked like it was going up instead of down.
The next day the news reported that the Russians had jettisoned part of the MIR space station, which was apparently what the shooting star was. Must have been a lot of copper in it for it to be bright green like that.
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If true, that's a "persistent train" and is caused by spectral lines from excited plasma recombining and going back into the ground state.
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Well, it certainly has been INteresting seeing all the speculation about what could cause a meteor to "stand still" for 15 minutes but, guyz, it's just typical badly-worded journalistic/blogish cluelessness. MOST fireballs leave persistant smoke trails in the sky and if the upper-level winds are quiet those trails can last a LONG time.
Haven't any of you ever seen a meteor shower and caught sight of a fireball?? Any of you??? Anyone????
Never mind. It was Eevil Republic
Great video from Milwaukee (Score:5, Informative)
Fox11 News in Milwaukee has a dramatic video [fox11online.com] of the meteor taken looking slightly north of west in downtown Milwaukee, WI.
Any idea where it actually landed? DID it actually land -- or just burn up in the atmosphere?
Re:Great video from Milwaukee (Score:4, Funny)
It landed, but was towed away for not having a parking permit.
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And is currently at Guantimo being questioned about its acts of terror.
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I Saw it pretty clear here in Iowa City out the window to the North... if it was ALSO north of Wisconsin, My guess would by Canada... or the patrol officer didn't know which way North was-
I saw the meteor (Score:5, Informative)
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What you see is a plasma - the air (plus whatever is vaporized from the meteor itself) is both ionized (making a plasma) and disassociated (i.e., molecular bonds are broken). That's why it conducts, so in the radio is a good reflector (of radar) and is opaque (causing a communications blackout for reentering spacecraft).The colored tails (AKA persistent trains) that are reported (and can last a long time, as apparently happened with this one) are spectral lines emitted from gas combining back into molecul
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Yes I had just walked out onto my deck and was in shock for several seconds not understanding what I was quite seeing at first. It was huge, and from it's speed I could tell it was still at least several hundred miles away from me.
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REFLEX Save DC 22. (Score:2)
"That's no fireball!"
Oblig. (Score:2)
Planetary defense (Score:3, Interesting)
One day we'll be able to predict events like this. You'll see something in the sky, go to a website, or pull up an app on your smart phone, and it'll have a designation based on when it was first detected and the flight path that object took to hit the atmosphere. Maybe the website will look something like this [nasa.gov], but hopefully not ;) Tracking small rocks like this might seem like a waste of time, until we predict one that is going to hit a major populated area - lives could be saved. This would be a side-benefit of the real purpose of the program - detecting planet killer sized hazards and preparing for the day when we need to divert one. The economic benefits of capturing asteroids in orbit and utilizing the materials should also be considerable.
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Tracking small rocks like this might seem like a waste of time, until we predict one that is going to hit a major populated area - lives could be saved.
I don't know, It's one thing to know when a small rock will hit the earth, and another thing to predict where it will hit within a few miles. And then yet another thing entirely to know where to send all of the evacuees. It it looks like it will hit Dallas, do we completely evacuate the whole metroplex? And how far do they go? If you are not careful, it may
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There's some tether concepts for trading delta-v with asteroids that could both be used to divert them or to provide slingshot maneuvers.. but more likely is to use the asteroid as fuel - most asteroids are believed to be between 50 and 80% water by mass.
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Anything under a few tons is perfectly safe.. as the article says, objects of this size hit our atmosphere all the time.
Another one spotted last night. (Score:4, Interesting)
Pieces will be found (Score:5, Informative)
I would bet that pieces will be found of the meteor. FIrst, the orbit / path will be well known, with so many multiple videos of it from different locations.
Second, astronomer Mark Hammergren, of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, predicts that it may have weighed as much as 1000 pounds [nationalgeographic.com].
"One of the misconceptions about bright meteors is that they're due to very tiny objects," said Hammergren. But "if something is bright enough to light up the sky like daytime and cause sonic booms throughout the entire area, it's big. It was major," he said. "If it was daytime, people would have undoubtedly seen smoke trails."
I think that this is very sound reasoning. Happy hunting to rockhounds in Wisconsin !
Now, why do we never get such multiple confirmations of UFOs ?
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Now, why do we never get such multiple confirmations of UFOs ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephenville,_Texas#2008_UFO_sightings [wikipedia.org]
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Look at this object. Within minutes, there are multiple independent video recordings of it from all over (basically true for every large meteor over an occupied area for the last decade or more), a path will be determined within hours to days, and pieces are likely to be found in short order.
I simply do not care about any UFO report from the past decade that does not meet that standard. Find multiple, independent surveillance camera or other video views of it, and I am interested. If you don't have that the
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I simply do not care about any UFO report from the past decade that does not meet that standard. Find multiple, independent surveillance camera or other video views of it, and I am interested. If you don't have that then you are wasting your time and breath IMHO.
And I'm just pointing out that this exists, with the one simple proviso that it is not being placed conveniently in your lap for review with the shining stamp of social approval. Do you always let other people's fear levels determine what is "real" for you? If so, then that's actually quite normal. I just find it limiting, and prefer to think for myself since most people are frightened, delicate creatures all too ready to behave in a manner rationally counter to the demands of reality in order to stay in
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Are you always so gullible that you fall for wild claims in printed works simply because they're printed?
It's important to remember that UFO means "Unidentified Flying Object." That can be anything: A bird, a plane, or debris of various sorts. It's unlikely to be extraterrestrial with the rare exception of space debris.
Worse, your source Mr. Dolan is a nutjob. He's an entertainer first and foremost. Of course, you're free to belie
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It's important to remember that UFO means "Unidentified Flying Object." That can be anything: A bird, a plane, or debris of various sorts.
If you're still stuck on that, then you've been arguing with idiots and you are miles behind the educated. So, yes, thank-you. The adults have figured out what the acronym "UFO" means. Now perhaps you might want to ask why people are rolling their eyes at you and what they might know which you haven't worked out yet.
Dolan is a nutjob entertainer? Sorry, but he doesn't write with the kind of adolescent vitriol your silly post is ringing with, so I'm inclined to take an academic of his caliber rather more
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Lost Child (Score:5, Funny)
We've talked to the appropriate authorities, but we know we need to get the word out as much as possible. The doctors say he's fine, but he hasn't spoken a word yet.
Please take a look at his picture [mylifetime.com] and call your local authorities if you have any information at all. We are desperate to find out who he is.
If nobody can legitimately claim him, we would be so blessed if we could adopt him. For now, Martha and I have taken to calling him Clark. Thanks.
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Bonus points for the linked photo. I was expecting a movie screenshot, etc., but that was just awesome.
Well done.
Is there a Smallville anywhere nearby? (Score:2, Funny)
As a Californian, all the Midwest looks alike to me. Is there a Smallville anywhere near the meteor's GZ?
Spy Satellite. Duh! (Score:3, Interesting)
This doesn't make sense for a "meteor". The atmosphere is less than 200 miles thick, and the chance that a meteorite will skim across that relatively thin layer of atmosphere long enough to be sited along a 700-mile path over multiple states is infinitesimal. Multiply that by the tiny fractional probability that it would have enough mass to burn that long and the odds look impossible.
More likely, this was a massive satellite in near earth orbit. That's really the only reasonable thing which would match the observations.
So, since it's not being reported as a satellite it's probably a secret satellite. We already know that NASA launches classified payloads. It's safe to assume that other countries do too. Stealth technology would be simple, just build it with flat metal sides painted black and power it with a self-contained reactor (and there's your mass).
Re:Spy Satellite. Duh! (Score:5, Informative)
The orbit of this will be found very quickly - probably within 24 hours. That will rule in or out whether it was in Earth orbit.
Note that
- there are orbits for all satellites bigger than a few kilograms, secret or no. It's hard to hide up there and
- there have been number of multi-state [space.com] meteors in the past. This, if a meteor, would not be very unusual.
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The atmosphere is less than 200 miles thick, and the chance that a meteorite will skim across that relatively thin layer of atmosphere long enough to be sited along a 700-mile path over multiple states is infinitesimal.
One might say that the odds were...astronomical.
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The path doesn't have to be 700 miles long to be visible over 700 miles of ground. An apparently stationary object 200 miles up will only be overhead of a single point on the ground, but will be 45 degrees or higher above the horizon for about 700 miles in every direction. This thing could've exploded in place and been visible over as long a track.
why was there no warning? (Score:2)
I thought there were at least a couple groups scanning the skies looking for the next armageddon-variety meteor headed our way? Wouldn't we expect to have seen a big thing like this coming? Granted, probably not enough to be a biosphere-killer, but still would make a mess of a city if it hit, or of possibly several if it hit water and did the tsunami thing.
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Did NASA know about this? (Score:2)
If not, why not?
They should be able to give us a heads up about anything that enters our atmosphere from space so it can be tracked/viewed/enjoyed etc.
I'm sure the science on the shuttles are valuable, but what about stuff that's flying at our planet, and I don't just mean the belt of pollution in earth's orbit consisting of dangerous (to the space station/satellites etc) space trash.
Or is this stuff too fast/small/frequent/random to track?
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Most of these things are too small to have been found by scientists. They've done a good job over the last few years finding most of the big ones (1 km diameter - stuff that'd wipe out the planet) but there are still plenty of smaller ones that they have no idea about. Most of them, in fact. I believe the only one that's ever been known in advance of its impact was in Sudan last year. And that was only known a day or so in advance.
Devon
That there was just one of Larry King's marriages (Score:2)
... lighting up the sky ... Tunguska event, like . . . see tmz.com for details . . .
Related news (Score:2)
I saw it (Score:2)
I live in Madison. My wife and I saw flashes of light out the window and figured it was distant lightning. Seeing the video now is cool. I definitely saw those bold flashes of light. I wish I'd known what it was, I would have gone for a better look.
Xenu! (Score:2)
Debris from last week's asteroid? (Score:2)
I wonder if it could be a piece of debris from the asteroid that made a close pass to Earth [scientificamerican.com] about a week ago, in a spiral orbit since then. Just because it made a big light show doesn't mean the material was huge. The piece of debris could have started out the size of a softball, and (if it made it to the ground at all) could have been smaller than the size of a pea upon impact.
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I don't know that something the size of a softball would make those long sonic booms that were heard over such a large area.
Someone quoted a guy from Adler Planetarium estimating that is was 1000 lbs or so based on various factors.
Even cooler from the air! (Score:2, Informative)
I was on my way back to Chicago Midway on a Southwest flight when I saw this outside my window seat. We were traveling east and it was several miles to our north, but impressive nonetheless. From my perspective, it was looked a lot like pictures you always see of comets. For the few seconds I was able to see it, it was burning white hot and got more intense just before it broke up into 3 pieces and quickly disappeared from site.
I'm not sure what it was, but it made for a fantastic show!
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Not to overstate the obvious, but you might want to look here [wikipedia.org].
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the point you are missing here, if an object which acts on its own discretion and capable of accelerating to immense speeds almost instantly (an ufo) while 3 soviet mig 21s are chasing and filming it, can be labeled and 'debunked' as optical illusion, this fucking meteor also can.
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I think you may have forgotten that some of your links pointed to shaky camera footage of clouds and/or a column of smoke.
Several of the related videos also showed shots of sun dogs and other optical phenomenon. It's unlikely HAARP
ok then (Score:2)
yea (Score:2)
im not stupid, but extensive skepticism is. ill show you :
prove me it was a meteor. it might have been a rare atmospheric phenomenon or swamp gas.
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Something remotely interesting happened in the Midwest? That might be a first
I see you've never read my journals. [slashdot.org]