massive shooting star headed for northern france

reply to post by iforget


Fair point.

I think that it's also worth noting that it's not always easy to tell a man-made meteor apart from a natural meteor, even for seasoned observers in some cases. From the OP's description it could be either, but odds are it was natural.

Originally posted by Jimbowsk
I`m actually surprised no-one`s said it yet...bits of Elenin

No sorry pass by already
But nice try

Originally posted by BriGuyTM90
Yup thats exactly where it was it appeared right blow the belt and headed east it was really cool tho Glad I got to see it me and my friend were just like did you see that. We were looking at the sky because the sky was so clear. It had just stopped raining after 2 straight day so there were a lot of stars out. Living so close to Chicago we can only see planets and the brightest of stars here.

Unless I'm missing something, Orion, together with the belt and Orionid Radiant would have been well below the horizon at 20:05. BST = local time?

If so, that would discount Orionids completely since the radiant needs to be at least 5 degrees below the horizon before you can see any. At around 21:00 local time the radiant would be close enough (just!) to see Orionids, but they would appear to shoot upwards and away from the eastern horizon.

Meteors like this are called "earth grazers", and because of the low angle at which they enter the atmosphere, they can often last longer and travel across much more sky that "normal" meteors that hit at higher angles.

Earth grazers are some of the most impressive and fascinating meteors you can see. I often start my meteor observing earlier on than normal in the hope of catching just one or two.

Either way it sounds like you saw a nice meteor. It might even have dropped some meteorites, but without further sightings from people in other locations, it would be hard to work out where.

The vast majority of even relatively bright meteors do not make it down anywhere near the ground, although they can appear to be very low in the atmosphere.

Out of thousands of photographs of bright meteors and fireballs, no one has ever caught a meteor that is luminous down to lower than around 20 km if memory serves. Most break up and slow down/vaporize well before then. The vast majority of those that do survive the atmosphere end up in the sea.

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


it was 3am so 3:00 and I saw orion it was to the south east of me

Has there been any news on ROSAT?
Why aren't the news stations covering it?

Could it have been something to do with this RSOE

Originally posted by albertfothergill
Could it have been something to do with this RSOE

Excellent find!
That fits both the OP and ROSAT

reply to post by Aestheteka


My thoughts too. Funny how a Pilot described it as an aircraft too! Doesn't fit the description of a Meteor anyway.

At least it missed land and people, thats the main thing!

Albert

On Slovak Joj news they've just said ROSAT will come down tomorrow morning and it could hit Slovakia.
Then again, my local town (remote, tiny and in the bush) started preparing gas masks after 911 in case Al Qaeda attacked so that might not really be of much concern...

I wonder if the meteoir was ROSAT and they're covering it up because it could have hit the UK?

hmmmmm..ANOTHER satilte re-entry AROUND the time of a meteor shower i guess there are just alot of meteor showers. be interesting if another alleged gas tank explosion happens

reply to post by albertfothergill


excellent find matey. if it wasn't for the lack of smoke i too would of thought it was an aircraft in distress. the direction talleys up aswell sort of . we observed it to the south of our position heading east, but taking into account that we were on a gradual curveing road , it could of been heading north east. certainly with the altitude it was loseing as it travelled then the channel would fit with landing site

Hi All,

I also the Meteor streak across the sky last night. It was at approximately 1905 UTC so that ties in with the person who started the thread.

I am a pilot with a UK airline and we were flying home on our last sector of the day from Southampton to the Channel Islands. We were approx half way across the English Channel travelling south west at 14000ft when myself and my co-pilot saw an amazing streak across the sky from west to east. It was an impressive sight starting off green and then burning into a bright orange with sparks travelling in all directions...It had almost disappeared over the horizon before it burned itself out....

Very Impressive

reply to post by Dashlate


Hi, UK pilot
I was wondering, as this is your first and sole post, in which you manage to combine your professional status and the object being a meteorite, if you have any thoughts on what other UK pilots described as being a plane in distress?
Here's the link - EVENT

reply to post by Aestheteka

Thats interesting i had not heard of this event....I can only suggest that it could be a meteorite or possibly a secret UAV (unmanned military aircraft) maybe lost control and crashed and perhaps whoever it belonged to would rather it be kept quiet...Though im sure there would be some kind of floating debris in the water if this was the case...

The one thing i did notice about the meteor that we saw was that it did seem to travel slightly slower than a usual shooting star most likely due to the size of the object and large amount of drag induced on it...It crossed the horizon from west to east over a period of about 8 seconds...

glad you had visual aswell . everyone else i told[not ats] seemed to dismiss it . ps did you ever hear of the outcome with the aurigny pilot and passengers who watched a ufo last year?

reply to post by da pickles


Not heard a thing...I think he has since retired and the whole event has been consigned to the history books....

reply to post by BriGuyTM90



If the length of the meteors path across the sky is more than the distance from the point where the meteor first appeared to the radiant, then it can not have been an Orionid. In 8 seconds, an Orionid would cross 1/2 the sky. There's no way it could have been an Orionid.

Also, people have mentioned "trailing sparks" (fragmentation)... I've never seen a cometary meteors shower member doing this. When I have seen this characteristic, it's always been a sporadic or random meteor not related to any shower. Usually they are relatively slow (compared to cometary shower members), and likely to be asteroidal in origin IMHO.