Huge Fireball Over Southeast US

WEATHER

Huge Fireball Spotted Over Southeast US

Posted: Jan 11, 2011 11:05 PM by Rob Perillo 
Updated: Jan 12, 2011 7:24 AM

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At roughly 8:50pm local time an apparent meteor was spotted by observers in Acadiana including KATC's Hoyt Harris. Hoyt and Acadiana were not alone in the observation with twitter reports(#flashoflight) from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida of a bright object in the sky at the same time.

A sonic boom was heard as far north as Western North Carolina where cloudy skies prohibited the viewing of the fireball. None of the reports in Acadiana mentioned a sonic boom.

The possible meteor was described as a large green ball (copper composition) with a trailing orange and yellow tail.

While there were no major meteor showers in progress there could still be a random object striking the Earth's atmosphere. Meteors as small as the size of a pea striking the Earth can put on quite a show, but many believe that this object was a lot larger.

As of press time there was no credible indication if the meteor reached the ground or just burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.

Apparently NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near Earth Object did indicate a relatively "close" flyby of an asteroid this evening passing roughly 850,000 miles (more than 3 times the distance to the moon) from the Earth. This particular asteroid was estimated to be 25-60 feet in diameter, but it remains unclear if the possible meteor was debris associated with this asteroid or not.

There will likely be additional reports and more clarifying information Wednesday.

http://www.katc.com/news/huge-fireball-spotted-over-southeast-us/

Bright Fireball in Southern Skies

Bright Fireball Flames in Southern Skies

Posted on Jan 13, 2011 10:55:43 AM | William Cooke | 6 Comments    |

Editor's Note: A rare snowstorm isn’t the only interesting thing that happened across the South this past week. On the night of Tuesday, Jan. 11, an extremely bright fireball meteor streaked over Jackson, Miss., and was visible across several southern states. NASA astronomer Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center confirms the meteor below. Okay folks, can confirm that this was indeed a fireball or bolide. Unfortunately no video of the actual meteor has surfaced, so I requested an analysis of signals from North American infrasound stations. We had one very clear detection, from the ELFO station in Canada, and a marginal signal at another station east of the visual sightings. Unfortunately the marginal signal is too weak to permit extraction of much information or to triangulate. The ELFO signal arrived at 10:05:50 PM Central time, some 1 hour and 20 minutes after the event, and came in at an azimuth of 210 degrees. If you look at the attached plot, the black curved line shows the path of the ELFO signal, which intersects nicely with the bulk of the visual observations -- indicated by the red dot  -- around Jackson, Mississippi (ELFO az gives 32 deg N, 89 deg W -- Jackson is at 32 deg N, 90 deg W). The infrasound signal at ELFO lasted some 2.5 minutes, and the amplitude permits an estimate of the meteor's energy at 40-80 tons of TNT. If we assume a speed of 15 kilometers per second, we can derive a mass of 171 kg or 376 pounds. Making a further assumption that the meteor was porous rock gives a size, or diameter, of 0.54 meters or 21 inches. That's the best estimate at this time -- if video data of the meteor itself shows up, please let me know. Don't hesitate to ask questions if you need clarification or more information. http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Watch%20the%20Skies/posts/post_1294934167122.html