Dazzling fireball turns night into day over northern Argentina

[G_j]

Source: Astro Watch

An exceptionally bright fireball streaked through the sky over northern Argentina early Sunday morning, lighting up the night as brightly as daylight for a few moments. The fireball appeared in the sky at just before 3:30 am, April 21st, and was reportedly witnessed by thousands of people. Video footage taken from someone attending a concert and from traffic cameras in the city of Santiago del Estero show it flaring up as bright as the Sun, then going through a second flare-up before disappearing, leaving only a fiery trail behind.

Unlike the meteorite that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, back on February 15th, the object that caused this fireball was probably fairly small. According to the Argentina news source Continental.com.ar, Jorge Coghlan, the director of the Astronomical Observatory of Santa Fe, said (translated from Spanish) that it was a "rock of 40-45 centimetres" that entered our atmosphere at "more than 130,000 kilometres per hour."

With the Lyrid meteor shower peaking last night, this fireball is similar to what happened last year, when a bright fireball was seen over California and Nevada on the morning of April 22nd. The fireball set off a loud sonic boom as it flared through the morning sky, and pieces of the rock that caused it were recovered from Sutter's Mill, California in the months that followed.

Read more: http://www.astrowatch.net/2013/04/dazzling-fireball-turns-night-into-day.html?m=1

[dballance]

1. I Thought I Read, in the Not Too Distant Past, Earth Is Now Traveling...

through an area with more asteroids than we had been in. Earth moves in about 5 different ways. Rotates on it's axis, orbits around the sun in more of an ellipse than circle, tilts back and forth, moves along with the solar system within the Milky Way, and moves along with the Milky Way through the universe.

If I remember the article correctly, and I've googled to try to find it, the solar system moves "up and down" so to speak within the Milky Way and we just moved into a part of the Milky Way with more asteroids than where we'd been. So it explains why we're seeing all these meteors now.

[Posteritatis]

2. Movement within the galaxy as a whole is way, way too slow for humans to notice

And the galaxy as a whole is, on average, much, much emptier than people can comprehend.

The vast, overwhelming majority of asteroids are carried along with the solar system and always have been. There's as many pelting the Earth right now as there probably has been for tens of millions of years, and it'll continue at about the same rate for who knows how many more.

[dballance]

3. Of Course You're Right

The movement is far too slow on a human time-scale to be noticed. And yes, the asteroid belt does move along with the solar system and that's where the vast majority of the the meteors come from. It's so consistent they used it to determine the age of the moon from craters.

But I know I read that article that said we were entering an area with more debris or asteroids. I'm still trying to find it. Just offering up one possible explanation for the recent increase in visibly noticeable meteors. Of course I am certainly able to admit I'm probably wrong and it could have nothing to do with it. That what gravity is kicking out of the asteroid belt just happens to be larger these days so we're able to see more of them.

Who knows for sure?

[Posteritatis]

4. "More debris" in interstellar terms is "a few dozen more atoms per cubic meter," generally.

And we're definitely not seeing more meteors and meteorites these days, it's just that since Chelyabinsk got whacked nearly every one is making the news.

[Coyotl]

5. the solar system equatorial plane is not the same as the earth's orbit

that is the variation altering where the earth passes in relation to the debris fields. the tilt of the orbit is changing with time in relation to fixed space and the system equator.

[dballance]

7. I never said it was.

In fact, I listed the Earth's movement along with the rest of the solar system separately from its orbit.

[Coyotl]

8. You missed my point

Orbit is more than just elliptical, it fluctuates in 3-D in several patterns.

[Beacool]

9. I saw it on the news.

It looked pretty cool. It must have been great to see it live.

[uppityperson]

11. Did you look at the video? For a moment under it, it was.

[Posteritatis]

13. A typical meteor is somewhere between "driveway gravel" and "grain of sand"

A 20-inch rock is much larger than either of those and is fully capable of putting on the kind of display Argentina saw.

[Hayabusa]

12. They're zeroing in, aren't they?

LOL

[Amonester]

14. Wow! Almost better than Pink Floye!

[G_j]

15. pretty awesome! nt