"Major," Green Meteor Lights Midwest Night Sky

[amyrose2712]

A large meteor blazed across the midwestern U.S. sky Wednesday night.

Igniting over Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri around 10:15 p.m., local time, the fireball briefly turned night to green-tinged day and unleashed a sonic boom heard for hundreds of miles around.

Based on video of the fireball, astronomer Mark Hammergren thinks the meteoroid—the space rock that causes the meteor, or fireball—may have been up to six feet (1.8 meters) wide and weighed roughly a thousand pounds (453 kilograms) or more.

"One of the misconceptions about bright meteors is that they're due to very tiny objects," said Hammergren, of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, who didn't catch the fireball sky show himself.

But "if something is bright enough to light up the sky like daytime and cause sonic booms throughout the entire area, it's big. It was major," he said. "If it was daytime, people would have undoubtedly seen smoke trails."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100415-meteor-in-wisconsin-fireball-sky/

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCP5hwOXtMk&feature=player_embedded

[HereSince1628]

1. Smoke trails would have been neat to see...

The Milwukee station ran a video clip that looked amazing.

[Zero Division]

2. I actually saw this happen.

I was just stepping out the door on my way to work when I looked up in a northerly direction to see a glowing green mass heading at a low angle toward the horizon. I then noticed the trail of fire behind it and pieces of it falling off and burning up. Of course, my jaw just about hit the ground. Being the nerd/geek that I am I got very excited and had to tell just about everyone I saw at work about it. It was by far the most amazing thing I've ever seen in the sky. The videos I've seen don't do it justice. I feel so damned lucky to have seen it--truly an amazing case of right time and place.

Most of the time estimates I've read, though, seem to be off. I'd say I saw it somewhere right around 10:07 p.m. CDT, plus or minus one minute (I made sure to check the time a couple of minutes after it happened.) This was in Davenport, Iowa.

[postulater]

3. Some parts were found.

Local TV interviewed a scientist who had received a sample from a local farmer (I think) and said it was definitely a recent meteorite due to the structure of the internal matrix and the lack of any oxidation on the outside.

A great find. Imagine the excitement of the people who get the first look at it!

[htuttle]

4. I wonder if anyone's checked on the farmer since then?