Green Ball Of Light!!!

desertrat

desertrat

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SouthernMdRocks said:
Sounds good to me!!:biggrin:...Now does that mean that is a comet did hit the atmosphere it would then be considered a meteor?
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A comet would not last very long if it contacted the atmosphere, being a ball of ice it would burn up and disappear very quickly. A meteorite is solid. A metalic ore that usually comes from the asteroid belt. They become very hot and usually burn up within a few seconds after hitting the atmosphere. Some make it to earth. The bigger ones. Meteor crater in AZ is a good example. The Chesapeake bay is here because a large meteor struck in the vicinity of Cape Charles a long time ago and caused all of the rivers in the area to converge on that crater and flow into the ocean.
 
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theArtistFormerlyKnownAs

theArtistFormerlyKnownAs

Well-Known Member
desertrat said:
A comet would not last very long if it contacted that atmosphere, being a ball of ice it would burn up and disappear very quickly. A meteorite is solid. A metalic ore that usually comes from the asteroid belt. They become very hot and usually burn up within a few seconds after hitting the atmosphere. Some make it to earth. The bigger ones. Meteor crater in AZ is a good example. The Chesapeake bay is here because a large meteor struck in the vicinity of Cape Charles a long time ago and caused all of the rivers in the area to converge on that crater and flow into the ocean.
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:yeahthat: i guess lol. makes sense to me :bigsmile:
 
ylexot

ylexot

Super Genius
desertrat said:
A comet would not last very long if it contacted the atmosphere, being a ball of ice it would burn up and disappear very quickly. A meteorite is solid. A metalic ore that usually comes from the asteroid belt. They become very hot and usually burn up within a few seconds after hitting the atmosphere. Some make it to earth. The bigger ones. Meteor crater in AZ is a good example. The Chesapeake bay is here because a large meteor struck in the vicinity of Cape Charles a long time ago and caused all of the rivers in the area to converge on that crater and flow into the ocean.
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Actually, a comet would probably cause massive destruction. Even though they are made of ice, they wouldn't melt very quickly just because of the rate of heat transfer. Comets are relatively large, so a decent portion of it would probably survive to impact. What was seen last night was probably only the size of a soda can.

Actually, looks like it would have been officially classified as a "fireball"
Meteoroid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A fireball is a very bright meteor. The International Astronomical Union defines a fireball as "a meteor brighter than any of the planets"
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desertrat

desertrat

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ylexot said:
Actually, a comet would probably cause massive destruction. Even though they are made of ice, they wouldn't melt very quickly just because of the rate of heat transfer. Comets are relatively large, so a decent portion of it would probably survive to impact. What was seen last night was probably only the size of a soda can.

Actually, looks like it would have been officially classified as a "fireball"
Meteoroid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Maybe. In the past though, most of the catostrophic events have been caused by meteorites. Comets just ain't big or dense enough. Ask the dinosaurs.
 
MMDad

MMDad

Lem Putt
desertrat said:
A comet would not last very long if it contacted the atmosphere, being a ball of ice it would burn up and disappear very quickly.
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From NASA:

"The Earth's atmosphere protects us from most NEOs smaller than a modest office building (40 m diameter, or impact energy of about 3 megatons). From this size up to about 1 km diameter, an impacting NEO can do tremendous damage on a local scale. Above an energy of a million megatons (diameter about 2 km), an impact will produce severe environmental damage on a global scale. The probable consequence would be an "impact winter" with loss of crops worldwide and subsequent starvation and disease. Still larger impacts can cause mass extinctions, like the one that ended the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago (15 km diameter and about 100 million megatons).
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Hale Bopp is about 40 km, to put it into perspective.

As far as it being ice vs. rock wouldn't matter. The kinetic energy of soemthing with that mass and velocity would be catastrophic even if it were made of marshmallows.
 
desertrat

desertrat

0_0
MMDad said:
From NASA:




Hale Bopp is about 40 km, to put it into perspective.

As far as it being ice vs. rock wouldn't matter. The kinetic energy of soemthing with that mass and velocity would be catastrophic even if it were made of marshmallows.
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Right. I remember the one hitting Jupiter now. Some of them are huge.
 
SouthernMdRocks

SouthernMdRocks

R.I.P. Bobo, We miss you!
MMDad said:
From NASA:




Hale Bopp is about 40 km, to put it into perspective.

As far as it being ice vs. rock wouldn't matter. The kinetic energy of soemthing with that mass and velocity would be catastrophic even if it were made of marshmallows.
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Same sort of thing was seen about a month ago in the early morning hours. BTW, who took the picture of it that is posted on here?
 
gingerbreadgurl

gingerbreadgurl

New Member
dawn said:
I did. I was on 381 (brandywine road) and I thought it was a shooting star.
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I think what we saw was a fireball. Here is a link to a chart where others saw it, I also found another blog where people saw it - here are some of the posts. That was pretty awesome.

AMS Fireball Sightings Log: 2007

Tom’s Astronomy Blog » Blog Archive » A Green Meteor

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Kayla Rentschler on November 8th, 2007

Tonight my boyfriend and i were out deer spotting, and i kept mentioning how there were weird vertical light beams in the sky, he thought they were just clouds. Later on we were watching a movie in his living room and i just happened to glance out the window in the pitch dark and saw a basketball sized BRIGHT green fireball looking thing FLY through the sky. i got goosebumps cause i was so freaked out.

1. did it have anything to do with the weird vertical rays of light?
2. what the heck was it?
3. did anyone else in the bernville, PA area see it?
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Tom on November 9th, 2007

Hi Kayla,

1. Probably not (?)
2. You saw a green fireball and I am jealous, I have yet to see one. You’d think with all the time I spend watching, sure I’ve seen fireballs, even seen them break apart as exciting as that is, I still want more 3. In a few days I’ll check to see if anybody has reported anything.

Congrats though….
Tom
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Tom on November 9th, 2007

Ben can you be a bit more specific with the direction/time/duration kinds of things? Sounds interesting.
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Kevin on November 9th, 2007

I saw it too last night about 11pm. I live in Lancaster co. PA, Geen ball with orange tail moving north to south in theeastren sky.lasted about 5 seconds
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Kerry on November 9th, 2007

My friend and I saw it to from Fairfax, Va on 8 Nov at about 10 - 10:15 pm - it was a bright green ball that came towards the earth and then there was a yellow/orange flash and it was gone. Lasted no more than 5 seconds.
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Bob on November 9th, 2007

Also witnessed the green (and purple) meteor from Leesburg, VA at about 10 or so moving N-S/SE on the 8th. Quick, but very bright - biggest meteor I’ve ever seen.
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Bob on November 9th, 2007

Also witnessed the green (and purple) meteor from Leesburg, VA at about 10 or so moving N-S/SE on the 8th. Looked like it was over DC, maybe Annapolis or so - probably well east of that. Quick, but very bright - biggest meteor I’ve ever seen.
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Lee on November 9th, 2007

Me and a friend saw one around 11:15 to 11:45pm Mobile, AL in the eastern sky it was massive, it lasted maybe 3-5 seconds before it pretty much fell out of the sky definatly heading south-ish.

Is there anywhere that anyone knows of that would have a record of this object that has some kind of authority in astronomy. This thing looked big enough to be a flare or a firework, but was definantly neither of the above.
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DJ on November 9th, 2007

I saw the fireball, too! That was the coolest thing I have EVER seen. I live just outside Washington, DC and just so happened to be out walking the dog at about 10:15. I saw a BRIGHT light over my right shoulder that caused me to turn and look. I am SO happy I was outside at the perfect moment. So cool.
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Michelle-Baltimore on November 9th, 2007

Last night, November 8, 2007 around 10:00 PM ee & a friend were driving and saw directly in front of us this same green shooting star/fireball. We were both so stunned & amazed I stopped my car right in the middle of the road. Then we pulled over & were just feeling so amazed that we both saw it! It was beautiful & put me in a great mood !
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Eric Newquist on November 9th, 2007

Laying on the patio around midnight CST 11/8-11/9 watching Comet 17P/Holmes (naked eye) in Gulf Breeze, FL. Shortly after midnight, a BRIGHT green meteor with a gold core appeared over the next-door roof crest to my NNW, traveling what appeared due south. I leapt up to watch it continue on overhead (a few degrees westerly) and past, and it “burned out” somewhere out over the gulf. It appeared “low” throughout its path because of its enormous size, unlike any other meteor’s fireball I’ve seen. And this was brilliant, fireworks-style bright green. Est. 90 degrees of sky traversal visible to me after coming in sight over the roof. No good estimate of duration, other than only a few seconds, but long enough for me to jump up and step back to follow it to extinction. Too stunned to give really good detail. Can’t find any other mention of this. Pity if no one else saw it. Magnificent.
 
hvp05

hvp05

Methodically disorganized
As MMDad mentioned, it could not have been the Shuttle Discovery because they landed on the wrong day (Wed.) at the wrong time (1:01p). And the Shuttle, I think, leaves more of an orange streak than a "green ball of light", as this picture shows.

Some people have been talking about comets, but regardless of whether it was a comet or meteor, it was obviously coming through the atmosphere, not in space. A comet in space takes several nights to cross the sky - not seconds.

And for all the worrying... has anyone heard of or seen any damage linked to this thing? Most of them put on a pretty light show, but end up hurting no one.
 
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