Meteor 2/20/08

joepro

Well-Known Member
SPOKANE, Wash. -- A meteor that streaked across the skies over the Pacific Northwest sparked a flood of calls to police, the FAA and television stations early Tuesday morning.

People from Boise, Idaho, to cities throughout western Washington reported seeing a flash in the cloudless predawn sky at about 5:30 a.m.

“I heard a rumbling noise and I just turned around and I looked up,” said Anthony Fazzino, of Fife. “In the sky I saw something huge, red and yellow and little blue in it, maybe, I saw fire, it looked like a big thing of fire.”

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Seattle, Mike Fergus, told The Associated Press that a Horizon Airlines pilot saw the meteorite hit earth about 5:45 a.m. Fergus said the pilot reported a flash and a burst of light near State Route 26 and the Lind-Hatton Road in the southeast corner of Adams County in southeastern Washington. The Adams County Sheriff's Office and State Patrol said they had no reports of an impact.

Duvall resident and KIRO 7 employee Leroy Gates said he wondered if the flash was part of a power outage.

“It looked like 100 transformers blew up in front of me and all the Cascades lit up, my barn lit up and everything around me lit up and then it was gone,” Gates said.

FAA officials said pilots reported seeing the meteor in the sky from Boise, Idaho, far into Washington state.

Kjerstin Ramsing, a Spokane television reporter who saw the flash, told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News it looked like summer lightning in the distance or an exploding transformer.

She said officials at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington told her that a meteor coming through the Earth's atmosphere could be "as large as a steamer trunk."

“Living on top of the mountain, I see a lot of shooting stars and a lot of this kind of thing, but nor this bright, not this bright at all. It was definitely something to be seen,” Gates said.

A Coast Guard representative told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News the agency received numerous reports from people in the Puget Sound area who saw a bright flash in the sky.

Television stations in Spokane reported getting viewer calls from across Washington state and north Idaho, parts of Oregon and southeastern British Columbia, starting about 5:30 a.m.

The callers said it resembled summer lightning, a rocket, a satellite or an exploding transformer. A viewer from Walla Walla, about 55 miles south-southeast of the reported crash site, said she heard a sonic boom and felt a shockwave not long after seeing the streaking meteor.

There have been no reports of damage or injury, and sheriff's dispatchers said they don't know of any meteorite landing.

“I’ve seen a lot of thing, but this is unreal. Unreal,” Fazzino said
 
a piece of it landed in my backyard:hump: Im sellin it on ebay as we speak:hump:

i would hang on to it - but if you don't care - selling to some who will appreciate it is cool. did you do any research on meteors before selling or are you just taking what you can get?
 
actually would you be interested in buying it?

thanks but i'm not a meteor collector. but some are worth some pretty big bucks (if they can be shown to come from the Moon, Mars or another planet) but that is pretty rare.

I just wanted to mention that it might be worth doing a bit of research so you know what you have and what its real value is before putting it on ebay.
 
thanks but i'm not a meteor collector. but some are worth some pretty big bucks (if they can be shown to come from the Moon, Mars or another planet) but that is pretty rare.

I just wanted to mention that it might be worth doing a bit of research so you know what you have and what its real value is before putting it on ebay.

I might as well mention before we get any farther
















































SYKE:hump:
 
as an amateur astronomer i have seen quite a few whacky looking things - including fireballs like the on in the video - there has always been a down-to-earth explanation. The video really does show a typical fireball.
 
I'll take ur word for it,email468
I just thought the size of it when it exploded was oddly large,I guess not.
+rep
 
I'll take ur word for it,email468
I just thought the size of it when it exploded was oddly large,I guess not.
+rep

thanks but don't take my word for it. there are a few videos of meteors and they don't all explode with that kind aplomb.

normally the meteor just streaks across the sky not making much more light than a low-flying airplane (the ISS - international space station also appears to be a low flying meteor flying from horizon to horizon).

but when a meteor enters earths lower atmosphere it really starts to burn up and that is the fireball you see. Sometimes a meteor is so large that it doesn't all disintegrate before hitting the ground. And then you have a huge crater (like Salt Lake for example).

very, very impressive stuff. i think it would amaze most folks that you can go out on any given night (from a dark sight with a clear sky and no moon) and see at least a few meteors if you watch long enough. they aren't as rare as most folks think, i think. now fireballs on the other hand are much rarer and much more dramatic!
 
I am always looking in the amazing night sky and showing my husband weird shit. I saw this meteor in GA last night. We were coming home and there was a big light like a mini sun north. I told him keep looking at it, it not moving like a plane, its going down. Weird.
 
there are so many satellites (of various kinds) orbiting around the earth. some of them called Iradium communication satellites are made out of highly reflective material that "flares up" very brightly. Sometimes getting as bright as the full moon and then disappearing just as quickly.

The extremely cool thing is these flares are easily predictable (since they are reflecting sunlight and we know the trajectories we can figure out when they will flare). Luckily there is a site called Heavens-Above Home Page that can tell you when and where to look in the sky to see this (and other) amazing phenomenon.

if you are interested in seeing the most dramatic Iradium flares make sure you choose a magnitude of -1 or greater (greater for magnitude means a higher negative number) so the full moon is like -27 magnitude and an average bright star would be around 0 magnitude.

as you can tell - i love this stuff so if you are interested in anything in particular (about astronomy) let me know!
 
That was huge. Ive seen meteors a lot and not that big. Im sure it was a real site to see it in front of your face.

yep - that was impressive though since we are viewing it through a camera the lens flare really made it brighter than it was for real. doesn't detract from the awesomeness though.
 
yep - that was impressive though since we are viewing it through a camera the lens flare really made it brighter than it was for real. doesn't detract from the awesomeness though.
True.

Ive def seen big ol fire balls and Im sure I could have made them look very destructive with certain settings on my cam.
 
True.

Ive def seen big ol fire balls and Im sure I could have made them look very destructive with certain settings on my cam.

i'm sure you saw a lot more living on the islands than near the windy-city!
how is chicago these days? I used to live there but haven't lived there in years. Lived in Wicker Park/Bucktown and Boy's Town/Wrigleyville - just off LSD.
 
i'm sure you saw a lot more living on the islands than near the windy-city!
how is chicago these days? I used to live there but haven't lived there in years. Lived in Wicker Park/Bucktown and Boy's Town/Wrigleyville - just off LSD.
Yeah I love Kauai and if I could find someone to move back there with me I will, I just dont wanna be alone.
Yeah I have not experienced too much here in Chicago with the weather being the way it is. So far I actually think it is really beautiful and I cannot wait until spring/summer. I have never been this pale or stayed indoors so much in my life!
I have great expectations for the upcoming months.
 
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