Real Falling Star

Ok I cannot remember if I have posted this subject or not, but I know I received no definitive answer to my question.
In the Autumn /winter of year 1975 I saw a star literally fall vertically.
In this time period I watched the night sky between the hours of approx 1700 to 2100 approx.
This star object was witnessed for approx a fortnight emiiting sparks and it was a fuzzy red orange hue.
Then one early evening I witnessed it just falling approx thirty degrees and then it disappeared.
I have heard the term falling star, but I know thet refers to Meteors?
I saw an object that was there (it looked like a star) for approx two weeks it was noticeable ....then I saw it fall and dissappear.
What was this object?
I believe it was a dying star, but I have been told the chances of seeing this event is astronomical against.
Did anyone in the east coast of Australia see this in 1975?

reply to post by Dr Conspire

Why would a "dying star" fall?
You know stars aren't stuck to the sky, right?

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Dr Conspire

 

Why would a "dying star" fall?
You know stars aren't stuck to the sky, right?

Yes i guess they arent stuck to the sky, but I saw this object(I believe it was a star) fall or appear to fall (of course it may have gone sidewaysor upwards I dont know , but from the ground perspective it appeared to just plummet and quickly.

Not sure what you were seeing. I looked up 1975 australia and ufos and meteors and came up with nothing. Maybe it was skylab you were seeing. I am curious why you are wanting to know now after s many years have passed, what you saw. I would think you would be more educated on meteors etc by now with the internet so handy. Seems a bit fishy to me. Anyways i was trying to find something that could help but it doesnt seem to be listed anywhere if anyone else saw or reported this type of phenomenon. Good luck with your search.

You (if you do remember correctly) got me intrigued...

Perhaps it was a geo-stationary satellite that fell out of orbit? Most reasonable thing I could think of.

I am guessing you saw this, but didn't know what it was:

Comet West formally designated C/1975 V1, 1976 VI, and 1975n, was a spectacular comet, sometimes considered to qualify for the status of "great comet".

It was discovered photographically by Richard M. West, of the European Southern Observatory, on August 10, 1975, and reached peak brightness in March 1976, attaining a brightness of -3 at perihelion. During peak brightness, observers reported that it was bright enough to study during full daylight.

Despite its spectacular appearance, Comet West went largely unreported in the popular media. This was partly due to the relatively disappointing display of Comet Kohoutek in 1973, which had been widely predicted to become extremely prominent: scientists were wary of making predictions that might raise public expectations

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/85ff42feb4c8.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0b562295f37a.gif[/atsimg]

Fireballs are the only other thing that fits your visual description, but they do not last for weeks on end.

[edit on 5/20/2010 by defcon5]

Thanks to those who have responded the comet although interesting is the wrong year.
I guess it was a long time ago, but what I saw I believe was a dying star.
And in that moment after weeks of observing it it finally went kaput and I was witnessing its demise.
It is strange how no one else saw it and there seems to be no documentation on this event,I know it was not a UFO as it appeared in the sky in the same place same time.
I guess it will just be a mystery but Iam being sincere for what its worth .

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Dr Conspire

 

Why would a "dying star" fall?
You know stars aren't stuck to the sky, right?

Someone's living 'The Truman Show'!

reply to post by Dr Conspire


You do know what a star is don't you?

Chances are that the object you saw "falling" may have been a meteor that you mistook for a star you were looking at on previous nights.

reply to post by Dr Conspire


Please look up how stars actually die!

You can believe you saw a dying star all you want, but that is plainly impossible once you do even the most basic research on stars.

I can only hope you follow my advice, learn something and not be blinded by your belief.

If it was dying you might have seen small explosions or slight changes in color as it tries to implode on itself.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Dr Conspire

 

Why would a "dying star" fall?
You know stars aren't stuck to the sky, right?

www.dreamscape.com...

In the beginning , the heavens and earth were still one and all was chaos. The universe was like a big black egg, carrying Pan Gu inside itself. After 18 thousand years Pan Gu woke from a long sleep.

When Pan Gu died, his breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the rolling thunder. One eye became the sun and one the moon....The innumerable stars in the sky came from his hair and beard

Hey, if you were over 18,000 years old, and dead on top of it, you might have a hair fall out now and then too!

@ Dr Conspire, seriously though, there is no known object that would fit that description. My guess is you saw one object for a fortnight, and then the night you saw "it" fall, you were really looking at something else, like a meteor. Your brain might have told you it was the same object, when it really wasn't. That could happen to any of us, it doesn't mean you're crazy.

Unless it really was a hair falling out of Pan Gu's head, but I thought we stopped believing in myths like that a long time ago.

And whatever it was, it wasn't a dying star. Sometimes we can see dying stars but they don't look anything remotely like what you described.

This thread poses a good question: if a star dies to the point where it loses mass is possible for another force of gravity to move it before it explodes or implodes. This question basically assumes that in its previous mass it held a more stationary position yet while it lost mass that position became unstable for whatever reason besides an explosion or implosion.

Probably unlikely to find such an event happen.

Originally posted by dzonatas
This thread poses a good question: if a star dies to the point where it loses mass is possible for another force of gravity to move it before it explodes or implodes. This question basically assumes that in its previous mass it held a more stationary position yet while it lost mass that position became unstable for whatever reason besides an explosion or implosion.

Probably unlikely to find such an event happen.

How fast it moves depends on how fast it loses mass. It can certainly happen in something like a binary star system, however there are no stars close enough to us to fit this description from the OP with any conceivable movement:

"Then one early evening I witnessed it just falling approx thirty degrees and then it disappeared."

Just plug in the numbers for the nearest star moving 30 degrees and see how fast it would have to move to do that: faster than the speed of light. And further stars would have to move even faster.

I realise compared to the depth of the knowledge ofmany of you space geeks have Iam merely a space ninnie , but ...and I acknowledge that some of the reply posts have pointed out to me the apparent ludicrous claim of my being a witness to a dying stars final sparks and extinguishment is false, and I was probably seeing a meteor,I watched the same object for consecutive evenings....on the evening it went kaput ie more sparks shot out of it and it moved approx 30 deg and vanished I was watching the same object.
I feel this cannot be ansered as I have tirelessly Googled and binged and nothing comes up except UFO sightings elsewhere.
Perhaps it never happenned, but I think it did.
I used to own a little Tasco telecope so I knew a star from a meteor.
The star was emitting sparks for several nights so I would say it was ready to die.
If something is going to be no more it can be witnessed.

Originally posted by Dr Conspire
.on the evening it went kaput ie more sparks shot out of it and it moved approx 30 deg and vanished I was watching the same object.

How long did it take to move the 30 degrees?

Did it not move at all on the previous nights?

This is what a large meteorite (bolide) looks like when it re-enters the atmosphere:

It does fit your description of having sparks come off of it, but it will not last more then a single night, and even then it lasts only a few seconds to minutes. In order for an object to be in the sky for multiple nights in a row it has to be outside the atmosphere, like the comet above. I chose the comet because you stated you saw it for two weeks, and it appeared to be in a shower of sparks. Comets frequently last over the period of weeks growing then fading in intensity, and the Coma can appear to be a shower of sparks to a layman (though it usually looks more like a hazy cloud).


There is only one other possibility that I can think of:

Possibly you saw the military conducting an exercise over the period of two weeks, and they were using parachute flares for illumination.

When a star dies it looks like this:

As taken of star SN2006gy by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. It does not make sparks, it does not fall from the sky, and it does not last for a two week period.

Hope that helps.


[edit on 5/26/2010 by defcon5]

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Dr Conspire
.on the evening it went kaput ie more sparks shot out of it and it moved approx 30 deg and vanished I was watching the same object.

How long did it take to move the 30 degrees?

Did it not move at all on the previous nights?

It took approx 2.5 seconds.
No it only emitted sparks intermittently and sort of pulsated white to red.

Originally posted by defcon5
This is what a large meteorite (bolide) looks like when it re-enters the atmosphere:

It does fit your description of having sparks come off of it, but it will not last more then a single night, and even then it lasts only a few seconds to minutes. In order for an object to be in the sky for multiple nights in a row it has to be outside the atmosphere, like the comet above. I chose the comet because you stated you saw it for two weeks, and it appeared to be in a shower of sparks. Comets frequently last over the period of weeks growing then fading in intensity, and the Coma can appear to be a shower of sparks to a layman (though it usually looks more like a hazy cloud).


There is only one other possibility that I can think of:

Possibly you saw the military conducting an exercise over the period of two weeks, and they were using parachute flares for illumination.

When a star dies it looks like this:

As taken of star SN2006gy by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. It does not make sparks, it does not fall from the sky, and it does not last for a two week period.

Hope that helps.


[edit on 5/26/2010 by defcon5]

Thanks mate for the effort and reply, but they are not what I saw, I was a bit of a lone kid at the time I asked no one about it including family, but I do have some sort of memory of it being mentioned on TV but google says nothing.
It definetly was 1975 to 1976 , a comet has been mentioned , but I know the object never moved.
Its strange but since that day until I knew better I thought a falling star meant a real star dying.(not a meteor).
I cannot add anything more perhaps , it was a meteor but i cant work out how?