On the east coast over 25 witness reported a fragmenting fireball with delayed boom sounds around 12:30 EST (4:30 UTC). The fireball entered the atmosphere near washington DC and headed on a north westerly trajectory terminating over central PA.

Click the trajectory image below for an interactive map containing the witness reports for this event.

Fireball with Booms over Maryland and Pennsylvania – May 18th, 2013

Nearly 45 minutes before this event around 9:30 Mountain time (3:45 UTC), a brillant fragmenting fireball was reported in Colorado. The fireball in Colorado was also traveling from the south east to the north west.

Click the trajectory image below to see the map for the Colorado event.

Colorado Fireball – May 18th, 2013

Two significant fireballs in different parts of the country each sharing a similar heading and reported within an hour of each other is interesting. More study would be required however to determine any linkage between the two events.

If you witnessed either of these events, please fill out an official fireball report.

For basic information about fireball meteors please see the fireball FAQ.

Lastest News

From NASA Community Facebook Page

New information provided by a worldwide network of sensors has allowed scientists to refine their estimates for the size of the object that entered that atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, at 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15).
The estimated size of the object, prior to entering Earth’s atmosphere, has been revised upward from 49 feet (15 meters) to 55 feet (17 meters), and its estimated mass has increased from 7,000 to 10,000 tons. Also, the estimate for energy released during the event has increased by 30 kilotons to nearly 500 kilotons of energy released. These new estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world – the first recording the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away from Chelyabinsk. The infrasound data indicates that the event, from atmospheric entry to the meteor’s airborne disintegration took 32.5 seconds. The calculations using the infrasound data were performed by Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
“We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average,” said Paul Chodas of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “When you have a fireball of this size we would expect a large number of meteorites to reach the surface and in this case there were probably some large ones.”
The trajectory of the Russia meteor was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, which hours later made its flyby of Earth, making it a completely unrelated object. The Russia meteor is the largest reported since 1908, when a meteor hit Tunguska, Siberia.

A hole in Chebarkul Lake made by meteorite debris. Photo by Chebarkul town head Andrey Orlov.

The fireball that hit Russia’s Urals is the largest rock to strike the planet since 1908, Nature Magazine says. The blast was even more powerful than North Korea’s recent nuclear test, added the UK journal.

The Russian Academy of Science now estimates the meteorite had a mass of around 10 tons before it entered Earth’s atmosphere, and began disintegrating at an altitude of between 30 and 50 kilometers.

Here are some comments made about this event on the meteor obs mailing list.

From Marco Langbroek of the Dutch Meteor Society

With a geocentric radiant at declination -81 degrees for the 2012 DA14 orbit, it is impossible for fragments from an associated “stream” to impact at a latitude as high as 55 North. As seen from the viewpoint of approaching 2012 DA14 fragments, 55 N is the “backside” of the Earth.

From Jeremie Vaubaillon of the IMCCE

Having a look at these videos, taken from Sverdlovsk and Kamensk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e686-i7woR4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCawTYPtehk&feature=player_embedded
the bolide was heading very roughly North-East towards South-West.

From Esko Lyytinen

Using mainly the video and the weather satellite image, with no real good calibrations, I get a
rough solar system orbit ( the last stage by means of Marco Langbroek Excel sheet).

( Entry with velocity 17 km/s ( 17.3) from about az. 97 with the slope of 18 deg. Corresponding (luminous) start heigth (assumed, quite heigh for the velocity, but considers very big size) 100 km and the end 7+ km.)

• a=1.66
• e=0.52
• q=0.80 AU
• aphelion at 2.53 AU
• node=326.43 ( J2000.0 )
• arg peri=116.0
• i=4.05
• 43.6 days after perihelion

The geocentric radiant is 338, +2 This is only of very general quality and given with (a lot) too many decimals.

The orbit does not much resemble the 2009 Feb, 16 innish fireball that I told of yesterday.

According to that solution, the landing site would be not much more than 30 km away from that video recording site. But I do not know the coordinates of this, except very roughly. There quite probably are a lot of small fragments fallen down much earlier along the track, (with possibly a number of bigger ones, besides the main piece).

Other sources:

From Russian Today:

Comparison between the Chelyabinsk meteorite to the century-old Tunguska event, a huge explosion allegedly caused by a fragment of a comet or meteor.

From NASA

“According to NASA scientists, the trajectory of the Russian meteorite was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, making it a completely unrelated object. Information is still being collected about the Russian meteorite and analysis is preliminary at this point. In videos of the meteor, it is seen to pass from left to right in front of the rising sun, which means it was traveling from north to south. Asteroid DA14′s trajectory is in the opposite direction, from south to north.”
more here

Videos

Here are links to several videos posted by Skywise on meteor obs

720 – 4:45 – hand held – shows trail, then sonic boom with multiple secondaries

720 – 1:46 – hand held – showing trail, sonic boom & secondaries excellent detail of ‘smoke’ rising in portions of trail

240 – 0:18 – hand held – trail, sonic boom & secondaries

720 – 0:54 – in car – no audio – shows entire entry

1080 – 1:34 – hand held vertical – trail, sonic boom & secondaries

720 – 1:05 – security cam – no audio – shows shadow progression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dsrd0ZJ-_4

480 – 1:03 – shows trail, closer, multiple sonic booms & secondaries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKld9ftxBvQ

360 – 2:12 – trail, sonic boom, secondaries, damage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq9opTXtihw

Google Map of the Event

January 5th, 2013 East Coast Fireball

For those not familiar with meteors and fireballs, a fireball is a meteor that is larger than normal. Most meteors are only the size of small pebbles. A meteor the size of a softball can produce light equivalent to the full moon for a short instant. The reason for this is the extreme velocity at which these objects strike the atmosphere. Even the slowest meteors are still traveling at 10 miles per SECOND, which is much faster than a speeding bullet. Fireballs occur every day over all parts of the Earth. It is rare though for an individual to see more than one or two per lifetime as they also occur during the day, on a cloudy night, or over a remote area where no one sees it. Observing during one of the major annual meteor showers can increase your chance of seeing another one of these bright meteors.

Meteors often appear much closer than they really are. I receive countless reports that the object landed just over the hill when in fact it was several hundred miles away and was witnessed over several states. It is your perspective that makes meteors appear to strike the horizon when in fact they are still high in the atmosphere. This is much like a jetliner seen low in your sky. It appears low to you but for someone located many miles away in that direction, the jetliner is passing high overhead. Meteors become visible at approximately 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. Friction slows these objects down until they fall below the velocity necessary to produce light. At this point they still lie at least 5 miles high in the sky. They are invisible below this altitude and cannot be seen as they basically free falling to the ground at 200mph. Very few meteors actually reach the ground as 99.99% completely disintegrate while still 10-20 miles up in the atmosphere.

Robert Lunsford
American Meteor Society

http://youtu.be/E_kKsNKe4HQ

Many thanks to James for posting this video so quickly and making it available to all of us!

A fireball is a meteor that is larger than normal. Most meteors are only the size of tiny pebbles. A meteor the size of a softball can produce light equivalent to the full moon for a short instant. The reason for this is the extreme velocity at which these objects strike the atmosphere. Even the slowest meteors are still traveling at 10 miles per SECOND, which is much faster than a speeding bullet. Even though fireballs occur every day over all parts of the Earth, it is rare though for an individual to see more than a couple of these bright meteors per lifetime as they also occur during the day (when the blinding sun can obscure them), or on a cloudy night, or over the ocean where there is no one to witness them. Observing during one of the major annual meteor showers can increase your chance of seeing another bright meteor.

Fireballs often appear much closer than they really are. The AMS receives countless reports that an object landed just over the hill when in fact it was several hundred miles away and was witnessed over several states or provinces. It is your perspective that makes meteors appear to strike the horizon when in fact they are still high in the atmosphere. This is much like a jetliner seen low in your sky. It appears low to you and close to the ground, but for someone located many miles away in that direction, the jetliner is passing high overhead. Meteors become visible at approximately 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. Friction slows these objects down until they fall below the velocity necessary to produce light. At this point they still lie at least 5 miles high in the sky. They are invisible below this altitude and cannot be seen as they basically free falling to the ground at 200mph. Very few meteors actually reach the ground as 99.99% completely disintegrate while still 10-20 miles up in the atmosphere.

In the AMS fireball table, refer to event #793 for 2012.

Clear Skies!

Robert Lunsford

The second fireball occurred near 20:00 EST (8:00pm) and was seen over the northeastern states ranging from Virginia northward to Massachusetts. The nearly 60 reports indicate a peak brightness near that of the half illuminated moon and a blue-white or green-white color. Refer to event #331 in the AMS Fireball Table.

A fireball is a meteor that is larger than normal. Most meteors are only the size of tiny pebbles. A meteor the size of a softball can produce light equivalent to the full moon for a short instant. The reason for this is the extreme velocity at which these objects strike the atmosphere. Even the slowest meteors are still traveling at 10 miles per SECOND, which is much faster than a speeding bullet. Fireballs occur every day over all parts of the Earth. It is rare though for an individual to see more than one or two per lifetime as they can also occur during the day (when the blinding sun can obscure them), or on a cloudy night, or over the ocean where there is no one to witness them. Observing during one of the major annual meteor showers can increase your chance of seeing another bright meteor.

Fireballs often appear much closer than they really are. The AMS receives countless reports that an object landed just over the hill when in fact it was several hundred miles away and was witnessed over several states or provinces. It is your perspective that makes meteors appear to strike the horizon when in fact they are still high in the atmosphere. This is much like a jetliner seen low in your sky. It appears low to you and close to the ground, but for someone located many miles away in that direction, the jetliner is passing high overhead. Meteors become visible at approximately 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. Friction slows these objects down until they fall below the velocity necessary to produce light. At this point they still lie at least 5 miles high in the sky. They are invisible below this altitude and cannot be seen as they basically free falling to the ground at 200mph. Very few meteors actually reach the ground as 99.99% completely disintegrate while still 10-20 miles up in the atmosphere.

Clear Skies!

Robert Lunsford

http://skyweek.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/brillianter-bolide-betorte-beeindruckte-briten/

Thanks to Daniel for providing this link!

A fireball is a meteor that is larger than normal. Most meteors are only the size of tiny pebbles. A meteor the size of a softball can produce light equivalent to the full moon for a short instant. The reason for this is the extreme velocity at which these objects strike the atmosphere. Even the slowest meteors are still traveling at 10 miles per SECOND, which is much faster than a speeding bullet. Fireballs occur every day over all parts of the Earth. It is rare though for an individual to see more than one or two per lifetime as they can also occur during the day (when the blinding sun can obscure them), or on a cloudy night, or over the ocean where there is no one to witness them. Observing during one of the major annual meteor showers can increase your chance of seeing another bright meteor.

Fireballs often appear much closer than they really are. The AMS receives countless reports that an object landed just over the hill when in fact it was several hundred miles away and was witnessed over several states or provinces. It is your perspective that makes meteors appear to strike the horizon when in fact they are still high in the atmosphere. This is much like a jetliner seen low in your sky. It appears low to you and close to the ground, but for someone located many miles away in that direction, the jetliner is passing high overhead. Meteors become visible at approximately 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. Friction slows these objects down until they fall below the velocity necessary to produce light. At this point they still lie at least 5 miles high in the sky. They are invisible below this altitude and cannot be seen as they basically freefalling to the ground at 200mph. Very few meteors actually reach the ground as 99.99% completely disintegrate while still 10-20 miles up in the atmosphere.

In the AMS fireball table, refer to event #322 for 2012.

Clear Skies!

Robert Lunsford

UPDATE 3/5/2012

Reports for the March 3rd UK fireball continue to come into the AMS.

Below is a map of the witness reports for this event. Click the map for an interactive Google Map for this event. You can click the witness icons on the map to read the reports. Green lines represent the first point of the meteor, while yellow lines represent the last point of the meteor. Red icons mean, movement was seen left to right, while green icons represent reported movement of right to left.

UK Fireball - March 3rd, 2012

You can view the map of witness reports by observer’s experience level.

Level 2 Witness Reports

Level 3 Witness Reports

Level 4 Witness Reports

Numerous witness reports indicated the presence of fragmentation and a sonic booms, both positive signs for meteorite dropping fireballs. Based on a review of the witness reports, if fragments from the fireball survived, they may have made landfall north west of London. Since several videos were recorded, so it should be possible to determine a 3D trajectory for this meteor.

If you witnessed this fireball event, please fill out an official fireball report.

NASA scientists were able to capture this event on video cameras located in Las Cruces and Mayhill, New Mexico and calculate that the object, only two inches in diameter, entered the atmosphere between Las Cruces and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and traveled a short distance to the northwest toward the Arizona border. The calculated magnitude was -8, which is slightly inferior to the light produced by a half moon. The entry velocity was also calculated to be 16.2 miles per second and the ending altitude was 51 miles. This object was a random fireball as it did not belong to any known meteor shower.  Many thanks to Bill Cooke of NASA for providing these figures so soon after the event.

Links to videos of this event are available at:

http://www.billcooke.org/events/NM_20120101/ev_20120101_031540A_06A.mov 

and 

http://www.heliotown.com/FBS20120101_0315utBW_Ashcraft.mp4 

and


http://www.heliotown.com/FBS20120101_0315utHE_Ashcraft.mp4 

Also thanks to Thomas Ashcraft for his two videos obtained near Lamy, New Mexico.
A fireball is a meteor that is larger than normal. Most meteors are    only the size of tiny pebbles. A meteor the size of a softball can    produce light equivalent to the full moon for a short instant. The    reason for this is the extreme velocity at which these objects strike    the atmosphere. Even the slowest meteors are still traveling at 10 miles    per SECOND, which is much faster than a speeding bullet. Fireballs    occur every day over all parts of the Earth. It is rare though for an    individual to see more than a few per lifetime as they can also    occur during the day (when the blinding sun can obscure them), or on a  cloudy night, or over the ocean where there is no one to witness them.  Observing during one of the   major annual meteor showers can increase  your chance of seeing another   bright meteor.
Fireballs often appear much closer than they really are. The AMS    receives countless reports that an object landed just over the hill when    in fact it was several hundred miles away and was witnessed over    several states. It is your perspective that makes meteors appear to    strike the horizon when in fact they are still high in the atmosphere.    This is much like a jetliner seen low in your sky. It appears low to  you   but for someone located many miles away in that direction, the   jetliner  is passing high overhead. Meteors become visible at   approximately 60  miles above the Earth’s surface. Friction slows these   objects down until  they fall below the velocity necessary to produce   light. At this point  they still lie at least 5 miles high in the sky.   They are invisible  below this altitude and cannot be seen as they   basically freefalling to  the ground at 200mph. Very few meteors   actually reach the ground as  99.99% completely disintegrate while still   10-20 miles up in the  atmosphere.
In the AMS fireball table, refer to event #1626 for 2011.
Clear Skies!
Robert Lunsford
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		http://www.rru.com/2011/05/large-fireball-recorded-over-atlanta-georgia-52011/
		http://www.rru.com/2011/05/large-fireball-recorded-over-atlanta-georgia-52011/#comments
		Sun, 22 May 2011 14:48:29 +0000
		Mike Hankey
				

		http://www.amsmeteors.org/?p=1039
		A large fireball was reported to the AMS by multiple witnesses surrounding Atlanta Georgia, on Friday 5/20/11 at 22:45 EDT. Over 17 witness reports for this event were submitted to the AMS. Kimberly from Cumming GA reports: This came in… Read More >]]>
				A large fireball was reported to the AMS by multiple witnesses surrounding Atlanta Georgia, on Friday 5/20/11 at 22:45 EDT.

Over 17 witness reports for this event were submitted to the AMS.
Kimberly from Cumming GA reports:
This came in fast and low. Object burned up over … neighborhood, so will see if I can find any fragments on ground tomorrow in the daylight. Two flashes close together. First flash brighter and bigger than the second. During first flash, could see object fragment. Fragments burned brightly like fireworks. Second flash seemed to burn up remaining fragments This came in fast and low. Object burned up over neighborhood, so will see if I can find any fragments on ground tomorrow in the daylight. Very bright and long at first, then a pause after a small “pop”, then slightly dimmer and about half the original length before it completely burned up.
You can view plots of these reports below. Clicking the map image will launch an interactive Google Map for this event.  
Atlanta Fireball - May 5th, 2011
This spectacular fireball was caught on two cameras operated by Bill Cooke and NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. Bill described the event:
This is by far the biggest and brightest event we have seen with our network! This was a 6 second event, with midpoint at 02:46:57 UT (10:46:57 EDT). It was so bright that the ASGARD software was unable to find a “center of light” and so did not automatically identify it as a meteor. You will note 3 distinct flares in the video, indicating 3 fragmentation events.
Here are two still frames captured from two different locations:
Atlanta Fireball - May 20, 2011 - Photo Credit: NASA MEO 
Atlanta Fireball - May 20, 2011 - Photo Credit: NASA MEO 
And here are the videos that correspond with the still pictures above.
From the Chickamauga station:



From the Tellus station



If you witnessed this event, please submit a fireball report and tell us what you saw!
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