Meteor or Comet Sighting - March 6 Canada - US Border

I just saw a meteor about 1:30 AM PST

I'm not very good with descriptions and don't have any pics, sorry.
I'm not sure if it was a Fireball

It was travelling south east. I looked to the south when I went outside and it just appeared, arced somewhat as it started but more or less appearing it was going straight down in a hazy bluish blur. To what would be roughly the Canadian US border near Sumas Mountain. I live in south west British Columbia near Washington state border.
There was no boom sound. It wasn't very bright.
I don't know how to estimate degrees but I would guess about 60 degrees. I wasn't looking up.


After some searching I wonder if it was the Comet Pan-STARRS?

Panstarrs is currently very low to the west (from UK) and will be passing the Andromeda galaxy later in the month, so i'd be surprised if it was that. I think youve maybe seen a meteor, i got a glimpse of one the night before.

Interesting.

Did it look anything like this?

Did you report it yet

thelatestworldwidemeteorreports.blogspot.ca...

or here LOL even do both

www.amsmeteors.org...

More of these events will come to pass. Sightings of meteorites will become mainstream. Meteor showers will be common as well. Solar flares are already common place. Anytime you want see the newest solar flare all you have to do is google it. Let's just hope asteroids don't start feeling left out.

Originally posted by violet
I'm not sure if it was a Fireball

How bright would you estimate it was? Technically it's a fireball if it's as bright or brighter than Venus. If it was approaching the brightness of the moon (even a thin crescent), then you saw a fireball.

Originally posted by violet
There was no boom sound.

Usually there isn't, especially if the event wasn't particularly bright. Did you continue to listen for booms for a few minutes after?

Originally posted by violet
After some searching I wonder if it was the Comet Pan-STARRS?

Comets don't usually appear to move in the sky as a general rule, so it won't have been C/2011 L4 Panstarrs.

Originally posted by sc1981
Sightings of meteorites will become mainstream.

Did you mean "Sightings of meteors will become mainstream."?

If so, what do you base this statement on?

Originally posted by sc1981
Meteor showers will be common as well.

They already are - there are well over 500 known meteor showers that occur annually:
The IAU Meteor Data Center(list of known meteor showers)

There are at least two meteor showers active right now, and this is the quietest time of year for meteor showers!

Originally posted by sc1981
Solar flares are already common place.

Was there ever a time when solar flares were not common place? What has this got to do with meteors

Originally posted by sc1981
More of these events will come to pass. Sightings of meteorites will become mainstream. Meteor showers will be common as well. Solar flares are already common place. Anytime you want see the newest solar flare all you have to do is google it. Let's just hope asteroids don't start feeling left out.

It's nothing new, this has been happening for as long as the Solar System existed. There are many accounts of meteor showers and comets in the past centuries. The difference between now and then is that we have equipment to observe and record these things, and the Internet to share it instantly. Same with solar flares.

Yes that right meteor sightings will become mainstream is what I meant. And what I mean by bringing up solar flares is that these too will become more frequent and intense. Meteor showers do occur often but they too can increase in frequency. The Mayan calenders are spot on. The manner in which all these events take place is relatively normal. But when you begin seeing these events increase, especially meteor activity, then we'll start getting the bigger picture. Look I'm no scientist but I'm not dumb either. Some of what we know as normal as of today is going to change. Whether its going to be earth ending or not its still going to have a major impact on our lives. We all seen what happened in Russia. That could've been a lot worse. Who knows I could be wrong. But nobody can tell me that I'm being far fetched because I'm absolutely not being.

Originally posted by sc1981
Yes that right meteor sightings will become mainstream is what I meant.

Based on what?

Originally posted by sc1981
Meteor showers do occur often but they too can increase in frequency.

You have a historic example of an increase in frequency of meteor showers?

Originally posted by sc1981
But when you begin seeing these events increase, especially meteor activity, then we'll start getting the bigger picture.

Still not sure where you are getting this idea from that there will be some sort of an increase in these type of events?

Yes the Russian fireball could have been worse since there are much bigger rocks out there, but it wasn't... we expect fireballs like that one to occur every so often (about once in 100 years), and Tunguska was just over 100 years ago. So what exactly is so strange about that?

reply to post by FireballStorm


From NASA press release. "Part of our ongoing plan is to understand the composition, the mineralogy, the physical condition of increasing numbers of NEOs," Morgan said. . . .
impact.arc.nasa.gov...

NASA articles usually neither confirm or deny the increase of asteroids.

Another article showing increases
www.birminghammail.co.uk...

I'm sure that these scientists have adequate credentials.

reply to post by rickymouse

“There’s a field of debris out there and their orbit and ours (the Earth’s) is getting closer. It’s exciting because we need to do some calculations about this debris.”

I wonder how he arrives at this, quite bold, statement.

Mr Lound said that two spectacular meteors were being seen over Birmingham and the Midlands every year on average in the last decade when previously one was usually seen every two years.

I wish I could see the source of the these statistics.

reply to post by Phage


I read an article by some retired NASA scientist a couple of years ago and the article stated that we may be experiencing more than normal meteors in the coming years because of a cycle of some sort. I hadn't much knowledge at the time to completely understand the article. I probably still don't have the specific knowledge to know exactly what he was saying.

This did not seem to have anything to do with crossing the galactic plane as far as I remember. It had to do with an asteroid belt in the milky way I think. If my memory serves me right, these will mostly all be smaller than a basketball.. I'm going to try to see if I can locate this article on the net.

I also had corresponded with someone at a big telescope complex in South America around that time. They E-mailed me back right away. It was about something different though. I was surprised the scientist responded and explained to me what I wanted to know. He even again answered other questions that I had from his explanation. I think I saved that link for future questions somewhere in my disorganized bookmarks.

I asked the scientist about this www.space.com... I guess it was not at the same time. I also asked him later if there could be a planet opposite of the earth in orbit and he told me they have definitely ruled that out not long ago. That was an idea back in the sixties.

Originally posted by rickymouse
It had to do with an asteroid belt in the milky way I think. If my memory serves me right, these will mostly all be smaller than a basketball..

I'd be interested to see this article too.

One thing is certain though, none of the recent fireballs (that have been caught on camera) can be attributed to material from outside of the solar system. If that had been the case we would have noticed since material from outside the solar system is traveling much faster in relation to us than material from inside the solar system, and all of the recent fireballs have been too slow.

This is because of the larger scale orbits involved. For example, an object in orbit around Earth can not exceed 11 km/sec. If it does, it's no longer in orbit around Earth. Objects in orbit around the Sun however will enter the atmosphere at speeds between 11 km/sec and 73 km/sec. If we go up a level, objects orbiting the galactic center of the Milky Way will have a minimum speed of 73 km/sec, and in most cases likely well above 100 km/sec.

We certainly do see extra-solar material entering the atmosphere, but it's generally so small (dust particle sized) that a fireball is not possible. I have never heard of one anyway. Something the size of a basketball would produce an extremely bright fireball - probably not far off the brightness of the Russian event in February.

That is not to say that we couldn't get an extra-solar meteoroid the size of a basketball entering our atmosphere, but I have never come across any evidence of one having done so.

We do have good evidence for smaller extra-solar particles entering the atmosphere though: Detection of an intergalactic meteor particle with the 6-m telescope

reply to post by FireballStorm


I think the writer of the article I read was trying to say with the basketball thing was that nothing from that area posed a danger to anyone on earth. Just a light show.

Originally posted by FireballStorm

Originally posted by violet
I'm not sure if it was a Fireball

How bright would you estimate it was? Technically it's a fireball if it's as bright or brighter than Venus. If it was approaching the brightness of the moon (even a thin crescent), then you saw a fireball.

Originally posted by violet
There was no boom sound.

Yes I did listen for a few minutes after and didn't hear any sounds.

Usually there isn't, especially if the event wasn't particularly bright. Did you continue to listen for booms for a few minutes after?

Originally posted by violet
After some searching I wonder if it was the Comet Pan-STARRS?

Comets don't usually appear to move in the sky as a general rule, so it won't have been C/2011 L4 Panstarrs.

I did listen for a few minutes after it and didn't hear anything. I heard maybe a small boom, not very distinct, could have been something else unrelated.

No. It was not as bright as the moon.
I forgot to say it was moving fast, not stationary in the sky as a comet passing may look like, but I'm not really sure how to tell the difference.

I'm sorry my explanation isn't using proper terms.

I've seen a bright fireball before that had white flames. This had no flames.

It was as wide as the moon would be when the moon is high and smaller looking. It sort of looked like if you smudged the moon and dragged the smudge, like in photoshop with the smudge tool if anybody knows what I mean by that. So it wasn't a tail or a think streak line, or cone shaped, but a wide smudge or haze and then it faded.

It lasted only two seconds. Like I said it was arced as it started to go down, then more or less straight down until it disappeared.

reply to post by KamaSutra


No it didn't look like this video.

I haven't read all the replies yet, just catching up now.

Thank you for all the replies.

Originally posted by Trillium
Did you report it yet

thelatestworldwidemeteorreports.blogspot.ca...

or here LOL even do both

www.amsmeteors.org...

edit on 6-3-2013 by Trillium because: (no reason given)

I did try to report at meteor society or whatever it is and couldn't because the form doesn't work on tablets. So it hasn't been reported. I even tried Canadian site but couldn't find where you submit a report on that site.