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."
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:Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Could Be Worth Some Money (Score:3, Informative)
I saw the meteor (Score:5, Informative)
Re:15 minutes or 15 seconds? (Score:3, Informative)
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 west to east and before it reached the horizon, it broke up into smaller pieces and was lost from sight. Iowa was not the only place where this meteor was seen, but Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri and Indiana also witnessed the fireball. It is still not confirmed by experts what caused the meteor fireball to stay in the sky like that or whether it would have hit the ground or not. It was definitely an exciting site in Iowa.
Re:Planetary defense (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re:Great video from Milwaukee (Score:1, Informative)
FYI Fox 11 is Green Bay, WI. Fox 6 is Milwaukee, WI.
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!