Nice fireball over the UK (with footage) 080513

A meteor has been spotted travelling across the night sky by people in many parts of England and Wales.

Sightings of the celestial body were reported on Twitter in areas such as Cornwall, Hampshire, Lancashire, south Wales and Worcestershire.

Suzy Buttress, of Basingstoke, described witnessing the meteor as a "once in a lifetime thing".

Space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock said the phenomenon was likely to have been debris from Halley's Comet.
'Ball with tail'

Ms Buttress, who was driving home on the M3 when she saw the meteor, told the BBC: "It was amazing, so big, bigger than a shooting star. It had a strange greenish tinge to it, with a definite tail behind it.

"This was definitely a ball with a tail. It took its time going across the sky. It went behind a cloud, then came out the other end.

"At first I hoped it wasn't an aircraft crashing. It's a once in a lifetime thing."

Richard Escott, a security supervisor for the BBC in Cardiff, explained what he saw.

"I was standing outside having a bit of fresh air and as I turned round I saw this very bright blue light which was dimming," he said.

"It was coming very steadily, progressing across the night sky, but it was at sort of building level and then died out to nothing. I saw it for about five, 10 seconds."

Source: BBC

This sounds like it was a good sized fireball, though perhaps not huge. Although Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock said it was likely debris from Halley's Comet (AKA the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower), this is not the case here. Eta Aquarid meteors can only be seen in the small hours before dawn by observers in the Northern hemisphere. This is because members belonging to a specific meteor shower all travel in the same direction (imagine a shotgun being fired), and at the time the UK meteor was observed the UK would have been on the wrong side of the Earth for eta Aquarid meteors to be observed.

The fireball was also said to be traveling roughly from South to North, which again is the wrong direction for eta Aquarid meteors. Anyway, I just wanted to clear this up, as even the "experts" seem to be getting it wrong - something which is not uncommon with these types of events in my experience. Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is obviously not a specialist in meteors!

No doubt this will start up the "are meteors more common now" debate, and I'm sure many of you out there know my feelings on this - basically, no they are not more common now. At least there is no hard evidence for this as I pointed out here.

Kind of annoying that they don't give any date or time for it, just "night sky"... I assume it was last night, in which case I would love to know how they saw it in South Wales through all the rain clouds!!

reply to post by Florasaurus


Yes, it was last night, and I'm not sure on the exact time, but my partner spotted reports on Twitter around 9 or 10 PM. I'll have a look to see if I can find a more accurate report of the timing of the event.

ETA:

This dashcam footage puts the time at 9:47 PM



More reports here.

My mum saw this last night, while we were watching telly. I didn't believe her until she had concrete proof, part of my "pics or it didn't happen" mentality.

Heard this break on radio news last night but I also couldn't find a 2nd source.

Good find! S+f