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 Anyone catch that object?
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Anonymous: Cindy
 Friday, October 24 2003 @ 01:44 am EDT (Read 3436 times)  



A group of us were heading back to Eureka Springs, AR from Joplin, MO Saturday, October 18th around 3:00 to 3:30 a.m. The first to spot the object said it looked like an explosion, when I got to view it, it had a trail like a comet. The first people to see it said from start to finish, the object and trail were visible for approximately 15 seconds. The object appeared to be in the southern to southeastern sky. Anyone see it?


 
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dgrosvold
 Friday, October 24 2003 @ 10:13 pm EDT  
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I didn't see it, but it sounds like a bolide ( a meteor large enough to show a distinct fireball.) 3:00 - 3:30 AM on Saturday would be a tough time to catch something like that. You were in the right place at the right time, it appears.

Anyone else?


Dave - Morrow, AR
 
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bobmoody
 Saturday, October 25 2003 @ 03:46 pm EDT  
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I also agree with Dave about it being a bolide, but unfortunately, I didn't see it either. We had been observing here earlier and had seen numerous small meteors. The Orioniid meteor shower is due to peak on the late evening/early morning hours of Oct 22. These meteors typically have 30 to 45 per hour at the peak, and I do know that an occasional fireball has been reported associated with them. These meteors are spawned by Comet P/1 Halley but there is no way to know when Halley shed the material that we see each year as the shower peaks.

Just think, Cindy. You may have seen a chunck of material the size of a grapefruit or a soccer ball that used to be a part of the most famous comet known, Halley's Comet!


Bob Moody
 
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Anonymous: Cindy
 Monday, October 27 2003 @ 09:58 am EST  


The story varies somewhat on the size. 5 of us saw it. The 2 guys up front saw a huge blast, they say between the size of the sun & moon. When I saw it, it appeared to me if I held my fingers in a circle around the object it would be the size of a nickle. They say the original blast, if you will, was bright and reddish. What I thought it looked like was a comet.

Do either of you know where to check to see if an observatory or someone may have caught it. It was definitely awesome. But also a little scary, Armagedon type scary.


 
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dgrosvold
 Tuesday, October 28 2003 @ 03:45 pm EST  
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What you describe still sounds like a bolide. A whole comet doesn't explode - it's far out in space, not in the atmosphere. pieces of a comet, however, do explode - that's what a bolide is.

Your best bet for confirmation would probably be the Astronomy Dept at UofA Fayetteville - Dr. Sears, who's featured on our Today's Feature Story, or the Arkansas Sky Observatory - Dr. Sherrod - you can link to His web site here.


Dave - Morrow, AR
 
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Anonymous: Cindy
 Tuesday, October 28 2003 @ 11:43 pm EST  


Thanks guys for your responses. I asked my man tonight to look at the moon. I asked him if it was as big as the moon, and he said no. He thought it was bigger because of the explosion. My first post was more accurate, however, as I was gazing this evening, I should modify the size of what I saw as well. It would have been the size of an eraser on the end of a pencil. My man thought it did not enter the earth's atmosphere. He said he thought it glanced off of it. He did not think it as cool, as much as scary, due to the movie Armagedin. He said if it had hit, it would not have been good. I have been researching since and have found a few pictures of what I saw but of course, not exactly like it. Again thank you for responding and I will check the sights you recommended. Nighty!


 
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bobmoody
 Friday, October 31 2003 @ 01:34 pm EST  
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Cindy, I still agree with Dave about it being a bolide, but besides being a piece of a comet, ANY incoming material, whether cometary or asteroidal, could have made a similar sight.
I have researched an object that came into the atmosphere in 1920, and had the entire populations of AR and OK believing that the end of the world was at hand. I've written articles for area newspapers and for two small magazines with this subject as the featured article. I learned a few things from my research.
1) There are TONS of material that enter our atmosphere everyday, mostly in microscopic form. So much material and so fine is it that virtually everyone has "eaten" meteoric material. Crops with large leaves such as lettuce readily pick up tiny amounts of this material and we then comsume it.
2) An object the size of a grapefriut can create a bolide, or fireball, birlliant enough to equal the brightness of the full moon, and occasionally brighter. Hundreds of these sized objects enter the atmosphere daily.
3) For an object the size of a chair, a bolide from this sized object might reach the brilliance of the sun itself, and if the angle of entry is just right, nearly 80% of the original mass may be lost to the intense heating from friction with air molecules. The hypervelocity winds at the surface of the object serve to carry away the intense heat , leaving the interior relatively unchanged in temperature. From this sized object it might be expected that something the size of a watermellon or soccer ball would survive the trauma of atmospheric entry, and fall to the ground as a meteorite, something that is estimated to happen a few dozen times a day.
In short, an "Armageddon" type event is exceedingly rare. So rare that it's estimated that only once every 10,000,000 years might it happen. For an object the size of a bus to enter, may happen every 100 years or so, but it still would primarily only result in a spectacular visual and audio event.
Our atmosphere keeps us safe from the vast majority of these type happenings. And there are small groups constantly looking out for the "biggies".
Consider yourselves lucky that you had a chance to see something that the majority of the people in the world will never see in a lifetime. And don't worry too much about "what if".


Bob Moody
 
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Anonymous: Cindy
 Saturday, November 08 2003 @ 12:19 am EST  


Bob, Thanks so much for the info. We are all still very excited about having witnessed this event. I do appreciate your responses guys. It was very cool.






 
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