Increased Meteor and Meteorite Activity 2012. Fireball February.

The Fireballs of February

Feb. 22, 2012:  In the middle of the night on February 13th, something disturbed the animal population of rural Portal, Georgia. Cows started mooing anxiously and local dogs howled at the sky. The cause of the commotion was a rock from space.

"At 1:43 AM Eastern, I witnessed an amazing fireball," reports Portal resident Henry Strickland. "It was very large and lit up half the sky as it fragmented. The event set dogs barking and upset cattle, which began to make excited sounds. I regret I didn't have a camera; it lasted nearly 6 seconds."

Strickland witnessed one of the unusual "Fireballs of February."

A fireball over north Georgia recorded on Feb. 13th by a NASA all-sky camera in Walker Co., GA. [video]

"This month, some big space rocks have been hitting Earth's atmosphere," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "There have been five or six notable fireballs that might have dropped meteorites around the United States."

It’s not the number of fireballs that has researchers puzzled. So far, fireball counts in February 2012 are about normal. Instead, it's the appearance and trajectory of the fireballs that sets them apart.

"These fireballs are particularly slow and penetrating," explains meteor expert Peter Brown, a physics professor at the University of Western Ontario. "They hit the top of the atmosphere moving slower than 15 km/s, decelerate rapidly, and make it to within 50 km of Earth’s surface."

The action began on the evening of February 1st when a fireball over central Texas wowed thousands of onlookers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

"It was brighter and long-lasting than anything I've seen before," reports eye-witness Daryn Morran. "The fireball took about 8 seconds to cross the sky. I could see the fireball start to slow down; then it exploded like a firecracker artillery shell into several pieces, flickered a few more times and then slowly burned out."

Another observer in Coppell, Texas, reported a loud double boom as "the object broke into two major chunks with many smaller pieces."

The fireball was bright enough to be seen on NASA cameras located in New Mexico more than 500 miles away. "It was about as bright as the full Moon," says Cooke. Based on the NASA imagery and other observations, Cooke estimates that the object was 1 to 2 meters in diameter.

So far in February, NASA's All-Sky Fireball Network has photographed about a half a dozen bright meteors that belong to this oddball category. They range in size from basketballs to buses, and all share the same slow entry speed and deep atmospheric penetration. Cooke has analyzed their orbits and come to a surprising conclusion:

This camera is part of NASA's All-Sky Fireball Network. [more] 

"They all hail from the asteroid belt—but not from a single location in the asteroid belt," he says. "There is no common source for these fireballs, which is puzzling."

This isn't the first time sky watchers have noticed odd fireballs in February. In fact, the "Fireballs of February" are a bit of a legend in meteor circles.

Brown explains: "Back in the 1960s and 70s, amateur astronomers noticed an increase in the number of bright, sound-producing deep-penetrating fireballs during the month of February. The numbers seemed significant, especially when you consider that there are few people outside at night in winter. Follow-up studies in the late 1980s suggested no big increase in the rate of February fireballs. Nevertheless, we've always wondered if something was going on."

Indeed, a 1990 study by astronomer Ian Holliday suggests that the 'February Fireballs' are real. He analyzed photographic records of about a thousand fireballs from the 1970s and 80s and found evidence for a fireball stream intersecting Earth's orbit in February. He also found signs of fireball streams in late summer and fall. The results are controversial, however. Even Halliday recognized some big statistical uncertainties in his results.

NASA's growing All-Sky Fireball Network could end up solving the mystery. Cooke and colleagues are adding cameras all the time, spreading the network's coverage across North America for a dense, uninterrupted sampling of the night sky.

"The beauty of our smart multi-camera system," notes Cooke, "is that it measures orbits almost instantly. We know right away when a fireball flurry is underway—and we can tell where the meteoroids came from." This kind of instant data is almost unprecedented in meteor science, and promises new insights into the origin of February’s fireballs.

Meanwhile, the month isn't over yet. "If the cows and dogs start raising a ruckus tonight," advises Cooke, "go out and take a look."

source: NASA

BAMMM! More objects hitting Earth in one night! 7 This time!

CONGESTED INTERSECTION: Ranging in size from microscopic space dust to mountainous asteroids, trillions of meteoroids zing through the inner solar system on a daily basis. What are the odds that seven of them would cross the same point in space? Pretty good, actually. In fact, it happened just last night. Regard the following orbit diagram, then read on for an expanation:

These are the orbits of seven objects that hit Earth on the night of Dec. 8/9. NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network recorded the meteoroids as they disintegrated in the atmosphere over the United States, each one producing a bright fireball. Note how all the orbits converge on a single point--our planet.

Every night the network's cameras scan the skies over the United States, forming an inventory of what hits the atmosphere. Combining images from multiple cameras, network software rapidly calculates the basic parameters of each interloper: orbit, speed, disintegration height, and more. At the moment, cameras are located in only four states (New Mexico, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee), but the network is expanding to provide even better coverage. Soon we'll see just how congested our intersection in space really is. Stay tuned.

http://spaceweather.com/

Near Earth Object Program

TARGET EARTH On a daily basis, about one hundred tons of interplanetary material drifts down to the Earth's surface. Most of the smallest interplanetary particles that reach the Earth's surface are the tiny dust particles that are released by comets as their ices vaporize in the solar neighborhood. The vast majority of the larger interplanetary material that reaches the Earth's surface originates as the collision fragments of asteroids that have run into one another some eons ago.

With an average interval of about 100 years, rocky or iron asteroids larger than about 50 meters would be expected to reach the Earth's surface and cause local disasters or produce the tidal waves that can inundate low lying coastal areas. On an average of every few hundred thousand years or so, asteroids larger than a kilometer could cause global disasters. In this case, the impact debris would spread throughout the Earth's atmosphere so that plant life would suffer from acid rain, partial blocking of sunlight, and from the firestorms resulting from heated impact debris raining back down upon the Earth's surface. Since their orbital paths often cross that of the Earth, collisions with near-Earth objects have occurred in the past and we should remain alert to the possibility of future close Earth approaches. It seems prudent to mount efforts to discover and study these objects, to characterize their sizes, compositions and structures and to keep an eye upon their future trajectories.
Because of the ongoing search efforts to find nearly all the large NEOs, objects will occasionally be found to be on very close Earth approaching trajectories. Great care must then be taken to verify any Earth collision predictions that are made. Given the extremely unlikely nature of such a collision, almost all of these predictions will turn out to be false alarms. However, if an object is verified to be on an Earth colliding trajectory, it seems likely that this collision possibility will be known several years prior to the actual event. Given several years warning time, existing technology could be used to deflect the threatening object away from Earth. The key point in this mitigation process is to find the threatening object years ahead of time so that an orderly international campaign can be mounted to send spacecraft to the threatening object. One of the techniques suggested for deflecting an asteroid includes nuclear fusion weapons set off above the surface to slightly change the asteroid's velocity without fracturing it. High speed neutrons from the explosion would irradiate a shell of material on the surface of the asteroid facing the explosion. The material in this surface shell would then expand and blow off, thus producing a recoil upon the asteroid itself. A very modest velocity change in the asteroid's motion (only a few millimeters per second), acting over several years, can cause the asteroid to miss the Earth entirely. However, the trick is to gently nudge the asteroid out of harm's way and not to blow it up. This latter option, though popular in the movies, only creates a bigger problem when all the pieces encounter the Earth. Another option that has been discussed includes the establishment of large solar sails on a small threatening object so that the pressure of sunlight could eventually redirect the object away from its predicted Earth collision.
No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs. Over long periods of time, however, the chances of the Earth being impacted are not negligible so that some form of NEO insurance is warranted. At the moment, our best insurance rests with the NEO scientists and their efforts to first find these objects and then track their motions into the future. We need to first find them, then keep an eye on them.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/target.html

Draconid Meteor Outburst

DRACONID METEOR OUTBURST: On October 8th, Earth will pass through a network of dusty filaments shed by Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. Forecasters expect the encounter to produce anywhere from a few dozen to a thousand meteors per hour visible mainly over Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. The meteors will stream from the northern constellation Draco--hence their name, the "Draconids."

Peak rates should occur between 1600 UT and 2200 UT (noon - 6 pm EDT) as Earth grazes a series of filaments nearly intersecting our planet's orbit. Analysts at the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office prepared this plot showing how the meteor rate is likely to vary:

If the maximum around 1900 UT reaches 1000 meteors per hour, the 2011 Draconids will be classified as a full-fledged meteor storm. The question is, will anyone see it? Bright moonlight over Europe, Africa and the Middle East will reduce the number of visible meteors 2- to 10-fold. The situation is even worse in North America where the shower occurs in broad daylight.

One way to enjoy the Draconids, no matter where you live, is to listen to them. The Air Force Space Surveillance Radar will be scanning the skies over the USA during the shower. When a Draconid passes through the radar beam--ping!--there will be an echo. Tune in to Space Weather Radio for live audio.

In Europe, an international team of scientists plans to observe the shower from airplanes flying at ~30,000 feet where the thin air reduces the impact of lunar glare. In Bishop, California, a team of high school students will launch an experimental helium balloon to higher altitudes, 100,000 feet or more, where the sky is black even at noon. Cameras in the balloon's payload might catch some Draconid fireballs during the peak hours of the outburst.

Stay tuned for updates as Earth approaches the debris zone.

Draconid resources:

• 2011 Draconid Meteor Shower -- from the International Meteor Organization
• Draconid Risk to Satellites -- from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office
• Meteor Counter App -- use your iPhone to count meteors and submit the results to NASA
• live meteor radar -- from Spaceweather.com
• Draconid Meteor Outburst -- feature story from Science@NASA

http://spaceweather.com/

Preview of October's Draconid meteor shower

The meteor shower won't be visible in the United States, so head to Turkey, Israel or the Greek Isles for the best views.

By Space.comMon, Sep 26 2011 at 3:13 PM EST

Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

The upcoming Draconid meteor shower in October will be impressive, but few people on the ground will get a chance to appreciate its true scope.

 

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/preview-of-octobers-draconid-meteor-shower

 

Saturday, Oct. 8

The Draconid (Giacobinid) meteor shower may have spasms of strong activity during good observing hours for Europe or possibly elsewhere. Various predictions put one or more outbursts between about 17:00 and 21:00 Universal Time (GMT). The shower's radiant is near the head of Draco, but the meteors themselves can flash into view anywhere in the sky. Unfortunately, the light of the waxing gibbous Moon will obscure all but the brightest meteors. See our article, A Mad Dash for the Draconids.

The bright eclipsing variable star Algol in Perseus should be in one of its periodic dimmings, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple hours centered on 7:49 p.m. EDT. Algol takes several additional hours to fade and to rebrighten.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/131148373.html

 

Government Cover-up? UFO Intelligence.

Why would our government start to classify space objects?

"For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere — but no longer.

A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned.

The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists." -- Click for source HERE

Maybe the government is worried that there may be actual intelligent life out there after all and that if they came to earth they may actually create some semblance of order. Perhaps this is the New World Order that conspiracy theorists have been discussing so heavily.

"Stunned families watched as the lights in the sky lined up in a flying formation before disappearing upwards into space...

"After five minutes of moving around, the flickering yellow objects hung in the air for a second then shot off into the sky and disappeared.

"I have no idea what they were - I'm not usually a believer but what I saw was really weird.

"I have flown planes and helicopters before and I know these were not them, helicopters couldn't line up like that or move that fast."

Phil Hoyle, from UK-based UFO Investigation Unit, said the way the UFOs had moved indicated a form of intelligence." -- Click HERE to read full story

What do you think? Sound off here!