posted on Aug, 5 2007 @ 01:48 PM
Originally posted by lawler_09
So last night or shall i say this morning bout 3:30GMT i did what i normally do. I saw this orange ball move fairly fast for a few seconds and then
dissappear with what looked like sparks coming from behind it. I personally think this was a shooting star. From anybodies experience with them does
that sound about right?
and then a few mins after that from where the object had dissappeared i saw a white streak move across the sky for a free seconds. again that might
have been a shooting star but it was different from the first one so i dont know.
[edit on 5-8-2007 by lawler_09]
Both of the objects you describe above sound like meteors (or shooting stars). At this time of year, the pre-dawn hours are rich in meteors due to a
number of showers being active, and the best time to view these is just before dawn.
Even meteors belonging to the same shower can have different colors, so this is nothing unusual. What is a little unusual, is your description of the
first meteor that had "sparks coming from behind it". This sounds like a rare fragmenting meteor - ie bits of it were breaking off and burning
up.
You can count yourself lucky to see this as very few people are fortunate enough to see one like this. I have only seen one in nearly 9 years of
meteor observing (perhaps 8000 meteors observed in that time).
Fragmenting meteors are usually sporadic (random meteors not belonging to known showers) and are non-cometary in origin. Chances are what you saw was
a small chunk off an asteroid. Asteroidal material is much more dense and will tend to flake off as the meteor burns up, thus producing the sparks you
saw.