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Meteor

tornado

tornado

New member
at approx 10:05PM I saw a large ball of flame with a long streaking tail shoot across the northern sky from the northwest towards the due north and disappear at about the extreme north horizon..

anyone else see it?? It was clearly a large meteor high up in the atmosphere flaming out...

within 10 minutes there were thousands of reports on twitter of people who saw the same event -- and they saw it in northern half of Iowa, upper half of Illinois, all over Wisconsin and in Michigan..

The people near Madison Wisconsin reported it to be more directly overhead while all the people further to the south of Madison saw it in the northern sky - so obviously all were seeing the same event.

We will probably read more about in the press..........
 
one twitter from a person in West Lima, Wisconsin said they heard the sonic boom and felt it strike the ground nearby..

West Lima is 40 miles NW of Madison Wisc.
 
Huge fireball lights up Midwest skies
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/04/meteor-spotted-over-midwest.html

Meteor Lights Up The Night (with really cool video- meteor starts 28 seconds into video)-
http://www.kimt.com/content/localnews/story/Meteor-Lights-Up-The-Night/ZQBcR5a9c0-W5EdOmqITng.cspx

Time-lapse photos showing meteor-
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/fireball/2010_04_14_fireball_loop_1024x768_long.gif

This meteor is likely part of a meteor shower that peaks about this time each year as the earth moves through a cluster of asteroids whose orbits intersect with the earth's.-
http://meteorshowersonline.com/showers/gamma_virginids.html

http://www.worldcorrespondents.com/gamma-virginids-meteor-shower-2010/883132

More reports-
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/article_e9bce742-4847-11df-8158-001cc4c03286.html

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/most_popular_story.aspx?storyid=120509&provider=top

http://www.wisn.com/news/23156299/detail.html

Many more reports from all over the midwest from a google search-
http://www.google.com/#q=meteor&num...m=1&ct=tlink&ved=0CCwQpwU&fp=de23072ab3a8f8f5

Report from Bloomington Pantagraph-people reporting possible impact near there-
http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/article_5e72a464-4848-11df-8609-001cc4c002e0.html
 
I saw it...it was unbelievable! I was sitting in my living room and we live in the country so their is no other light outside. It was so bright I thought it was a spot light from a farm tractor. I sat up and watched it streak accross the sky due north. It looked like it burned out low on the nothern horizon from my vantage point.
 
tornado said:
at approx 10:05PM I saw a large ball of flame with a long streaking tail shoot across the northern sky from the northwest towards the due north and disappear at about the extreme north horizon..

anyone else see it?? It was clearly a large meteor high up in the atmosphere flaming out...

within 10 minutes there were thousands of reports on twitter of people who saw the same event -- and they saw it in northern half of Iowa, upper half of Illinois, all over Wisconsin and in Michigan..

The people near Madison Wisconsin reported it to be more directly overhead while all the people further to the south of Madison saw it in the northern sky - so obviously all were seeing the same event.

We will probably read more about in the press..........
Click to expand...

Darn, I missed it! But I have seen some great video of it near Madison posted on the Chicago National Weather Service website. It looked like it exploded when it hit the ground! Hopefully people did not panic and think we were being attacked by someone!
 
Man I wish I would've seen it! Just watched the videos, it is amazing. I think I'd have panicked a little had I seen it though. :D
 
funny how much writeup this is getting all over the midwest from central Iowa and Illinois all the way north to Canada...

but I found a few comments kinda mutually exclusive...I guess showing that since these statements
cannot possibly all be true since they cointradict each other so starkly, that it's obvious many experts must be 100% wrong!!!



Many of the quoted experts said -
"it is part of a meteor shower that occurs this time of year and it means there could be more such events over the next few days"
BUT ------
one other guy says..."it's an event that's quite rare" and "even experienced observers might see such an event only once or twice in a lifetime"...and
"the Midwestern fireball's timing is just a coincidence. And the annual Lyrid meteor shower is scheduled to begin Friday and peak on April 22. And Meteorites have no connection with meteor showers, which usually result when the Earth passes through the dusty tail of a comet"



also - most experts said it was likely an object falling from space that was "about the size of a volleyball"
..but this expert says he has
"rejected the misconception that the meteor is very tiny object" ..and
...it was "six feet (1.8 meters) wide and weighed roughly a thousand pounds (453 kilograms) or more"
http://www.khabrein.info/news/Meteo...Wisconsin_meteor_fall_scares_many_1271413594/



and one last discrepancy--
most experts said it likely exploded and burned up in the atmosphere and there's no evidence that any of the meteor reached the ground...
...but this guy says that it -
"landed in Wisconsin" and
"Before it hit the ground, the meteor would have fragmented into dozens or
hundreds of pieces, each about the size of a football or smaller"
http://www.khabrein.info/news/Meteo...Wisconsin_meteor_fall_scares_many_1271413594/


should we take a poll on these questions?? Seems like since the experts disagree so completely on this, that viewer opinion is just as likely to be accurate!
 
tornado said:
funny how much writeup this is getting all over the midwest from central Iowa and Illinois all the way north to Canada...

but I found a few comments kinda mutually exclusive...I guess showing that since these statements
cannot possibly all be true since they cointradict each other so starkly, that it's obvious many experts must be 100% wrong!!!



Many of the quoted experts said -
"it is part of a meteor shower that occurs this time of year and it means there could be more such events over the next few days"
BUT ------
one other guy says..."it's an event that's quite rare" and "even experienced observers might see such an event only once or twice in a lifetime"...and
"the Midwestern fireball's timing is just a coincidence. And the annual Lyrid meteor shower is scheduled to begin Friday and peak on April 22. And Meteorites have no connection with meteor showers, which usually result when the Earth passes through the dusty tail of a comet"



also - most experts said it was likely an object falling from space that was "about the size of a volleyball"
..but this expert says he has
"rejected the misconception that the meteor is very tiny object" ..and
...it was "six feet (1.8 meters) wide and weighed roughly a thousand pounds (453 kilograms) or more"
http://www.khabrein.info/news/Meteo...Wisconsin_meteor_fall_scares_many_1271413594/



and one last discrepancy--
most experts said it likely exploded and burned up in the atmosphere and there's no evidence that any of the meteor reached the ground...
...but this guy says that it -
"landed in Wisconsin" and
"Before it hit the ground, the meteor would have fragmented into dozens or
hundreds of pieces, each about the size of a football or smaller"
http://www.khabrein.info/news/Meteo...Wisconsin_meteor_fall_scares_many_1271413594/


should we take a poll on these questions?? Seems like since the experts disagree so completely on this, that viewer opinion is just as likely to be accurate!
Click to expand...

In no way do I have any base of knowledge to actually know...but it did not appear to have hit the ground, as I saw it come apart and burn up well above the horizon.

Also, based on the amount of light it generated and the fact that it was visible to me in Cent. IL as it burned out over Wisconsin, it had to be much larger that a volleyball.

Just my laymen's opinion.
 
i thought we were supposed to be tracking these things so they dont scare the living piss out of people like that...
oh well
 
Now people are coming forward claiming they have found pieces of the meteor ...

BUT -- early analysis of the fragment says it is a rocky fragment, likely a remnant of the asteroid belt, and not metallic like most larger meteorites..
Here are some pics..
bc7c20d6-4996-11df-a24a-001cc4c03286.preview-100.jpg
geo_lab_meteorite10_9533_s.jpg

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/environment/article_d1877c36-4997-11df-a968-001cc4c03286.html

thus if this is truly a fragment, then it is an isolated event and NOT part of any meteor shower..


Here's one story that says this of meteorites..
"Some of those materials can give scientists clues to the origins of life"
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100417/NEWS01/4170318/1002/NEWS01

but is this true...since no evidence of life other than on earth has ever been found...regardless of what some claim!
 
tornado said:
Now people are coming forward claiming they have found pieces of the meteor ...

BUT -- early analysis of the fragment says it is a rocky fragment, likely a remnant of the asteroid belt, and not metallic like most larger meteorites..
Here are some pics..
bc7c20d6-4996-11df-a24a-001cc4c03286.preview-100.jpg
geo_lab_meteorite10_9533_s.jpg

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/environment/article_d1877c36-4997-11df-a968-001cc4c03286.html

thus if this is truly a fragment, then it is an isolated event and NOT part of any meteor shower..


Here's one story that says this of meteorites..
"Some of those materials can give scientists clues to the origins of life"
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100417/NEWS01/4170318/1002/NEWS01

but is this true...since no evidence of life other than on earth has ever been found...regardless of what some claim!
Click to expand...

That quote doesn't say anything about finding evidence of life outside Earth. The quote means that asteroids and meteors are left-over material from when the solar system was forming, so they're basically time capsules from before the Earth was even a solid mass.

(lol at Dallas Brave. Can the shining light also lead Bradley to the next POB?
 
I agree, but the article said...
"Some of those materials can give scientists clues to the origins of life"

but inorganic minerals that have never been affiliated in any way with life, are somehow supposed to give clues as to the origin of life?
I don't understand..
 
Let's come up with something more exciting!

It was a wayward interstellar spaceship. :eek:

The Feds quietly came in "Black" helicopters and wisked away the debris/bodies, and one surviving being, and took them to Wright Patterson Airport in Ohio for further study.
The "Men In Black" then scattered small rocky fragments around the crash area to cover their tracks.

Further investigation revealed the surviving being is Steve Merfeld, who disappeared off the face of the earth post BU. :lol:

Much more interesting than a small chunk of rock hitting our planet in the middle of nowhere.
 
Last night was exactly 6 months since this meteor, which got a lot of press, streaked over the upper midwest and exploded over Wisconsin...
I have been trying to find someone who is selling pieces of it, but haven't gotten one yet...

But I ran across a really interesting story that happened in Bloomington, IL...a couple years ago...
..a family heard a crash and found that a metallic object about the size of a pack of cigarettes had flown through their window and crashed into a desk and come to rest on the floor.
there was a little publicity on the event, and most people started saying the object must be a meteorite....and a fairly large one at that weighing almost a pound.

Almost instantly the family began fielding calls from die-hard meteor enthusiasts and collectors...but they turned down offers to sell the object because they wanted to have it examined by experts and they thought they could get much more for it.
Meteorites as large as this in the half-pound to one pound range are exceedingly scarce and few are in private hands and a couple have been known to sell for well upwards of $50,000.

But -- even though the immediate offers were ranging up in excess of $10,000-$12,000 for the object. Even sight unseen, collectors wanted it badly and wanted to get their hands on it before someone else did or before someone cut the object or ruined it during some examination...


Well...guess what....after turning down offers that were bidding up to near $20,000...they had the object examined by experts and it turned out to be a total DUD...

What the object was -- turned out to be an old axe head that was embedded into some tree decades earlier, then the tree was cut and logs were used for decades, and an extremely powerful saw/chopper was cutting the log about 1/4 mile from their house and when the wood was cut, the axe head was propelled and launched for blocks and it went through this family's window...

Thus it turned out to be pretty useless and of little value....probably wouldn't be even worth the monetary damage to the window!!

So... in the end, the family missed a chance to sell the object sight unseen for nearly $20,000 hoping it might even be worth more, and in the end they were stuck with a piece of garbage.


This story shows some pictures...and yet -- even ME, as a relative novice, would have to have been very, very doubtful that it is a meteorite...
Note size & shape to suggest it was something that was manufactured, and the lower, recessed parts have rust on them!! Meteorites don't rust!!!
there's no air or water in space, and entry through the atmosphere would surely burn any rust or corrosion off!!
http://meteorite-identification.com/mwnews/03052007aa.html

As you read the article, it notes that Illinois State University professors staked their reputation... saying this object....
"definitely came from space...
In my 36 years of investigating meteorite calls, this looks like the
real thing".

..but then...they are ISU guys....and they were wrong...;)
 
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