25 September 2015

Meteor

I saw a meteor last night!

I was lucky. I was outside for just a few minutes, and turned around at just the right time.

Now, I’ve seen meteors before. Shooting stars, like the Perseid meteor shower. But this was a big ol’ bright fireball.

At first, I thought it was a firework or something man-made. It was bright, and moving slower than I’d seen shooting stars move. It had a long trail that changed colour as it fell, although it was mostly green.

And it looked like it was headed straight for the ground. I seriously wondered if it might have landed and made an impact.

Idiot that I am, I didn’t look at my watch to get the exact time. It was too fast for video. It lasted just a few seconds.

Of course, I did what anyone would do today when they want to catch up with real-time information: I hopped on Twitter. Sure enough, there were tweets about seeing a meteor at about the same time I did. Most people didn’t have where they lived, but the timing and description matched what I saw, so I was pretty sure this was real.

I tweeted if anyone knew where I could report this, since the trajectory led me to think it might, just might, have landed. Bad Astronomer and one-time UTPA presenter Phil Plait came through and told me about the American Meteor Society’s reporting website. It’s a very cool process; very easy to give a lot of information. If you ever see a meteor, report it! For science!

The phrase “once in a lifetime” gets overused a lot, but this probably was a true once in a lifetime event.

Additional: Here’s the report page of the American Meteor Society of last night’s fireball. Quite surprised by spread out the observers were!


3 comments:

practiCal fMRI said...

Nicely done! Always a special feeling to see something hurtle in from outer space and burn up right in front of your eyes. For anyone interested in such things, a bunch of retired NASA astronauts and other clever folks are putting together a mission called Sentinel. They will build and launch a telescope that will locate all asteroids larger than a lump of coal and begin the process of working out their trajectories. Eventually the plan is to use the information thus gathered as an early warning system for us down here on the fragile blue rock. Might also be a way to get an early warning of where and when to look for future fireballs! You can support Sentinel by purchasing a tee-shirt or coffee mug, or you can just send them a donation. Cool bunch, including Ed Lu and Rusty Schweickart. http://sentinelmission.org/

Frank said...

Very cool you saw a fireball and officially reported it. After another person confirms the sighting, it will become an official record. Don't forget to find the record after it becomes posted, because they will identify what constellation it originated from. I have an official record too. Frank.

Frank said...

Very cool you saw a fireball and officially reported it. After another person confirms the sighting, it will become an official record. Don't forget to find the record after it becomes posted, because they will identify what constellation it originated from. I have an official record too. Frank.