Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Midwest Fireball

I posted about the one I saw last November here in Tucson that was seen over much of the western U.S., and last night was your turn. This fireball was seen mostly in Iowa and Wisconsin around 10pm.



They even caught the smoke trail on a Doppler radar image. Reports of (probably) sonic booms from the meteor as well.

Anyone there see it?

8 comments:

kkdither said...

Holy crud, NO, I didn't see it! I would have gone to the basement bomb shelter! Wow. That is really spectacular how it lit up the sky!

RWWackoStu said...

Mrs Wacko saw it and it freaked her out. I was pissed because I wanted to see it. How cool. here is the link from the UW Madison webcam that caught it as well:

http://www.aos.wisc.edu/fireball/2010_04_14_fireball_loop_640x480_long.gif

Sassa said...

What time did it happen?

hale-bopp said...

Cool, Stu! I was hoping someone here could make me a little bit jealous.

It was a little after 10:00pm. Various sources site times from 10:05 to 10:07. Typical meteor impact speeds are around 20km/s (give or take a bit) gives a speed of about 1200km/min or about 750 miles per minute). Given that people's watches might be off a tad, its not unreasonable for there to be a small range of times.

I am looking forward to seeing how well they can reconstruct that path. This meteor may have had some small (gravel size maybe) pieces reach the ground. It's unlikely anyone will find them. They are easier to find if they land on snow or in a nice sandy desert where new rocks stand out on the surface.

OrbsCorbs said...

Oh man, I always miss the good stuff! Thing is, I rarely venture out after dark anymore, so it's not likely I'd see one anyway.

MinnesotaChick said...

WISN ( chan 12) had a pretty awesome video of it taken from downtown Milwaukee.
Dang, you would have thought me being up here with clear skies would have seen it! Guess it didn't reach this far.

Cloudy tonight, I hope to see some this weekend.

Why Not? said...

Holy Wow!! yeah that would have freaked me out a bit.. but would have probably wanted to check it out.. maybe Superman is on his way!!

kkdither said...

The media said most meteors are the size of a grain of sand. This one, they are supposing, was baseball or possibly even basketball size.

There were several police dashboard cameras that caught video of it. Channel 12 was showing a scorched and burning spot on the ground that they said might be associated with it.

Sorry I missed it. They said it was a once in a lifetime event. More meteors are expected to be visible on Saturday, but none expected to be of any significant size.