Daytime Fireball Seen Over Florida - 17 april 2012

Contrail @ sunset. Obvious.

Originally posted by defcon5
Funny that he suddenly has to shut off the camera when his, somewhat oblivious sounding, cohort threw in the unexpected “that's the second one we've seen” remark.

You can even hear him groan.... i'm sure she got an earful after the camera was off.

There's good ad dollars to be made if your youtube video is your own material.

Originally posted by Wheelindiehl
reply to post by PvtHudson

 

If it's contrails then why the sudden uprise in people believing it's a fireball,

Because many people dont take the time to think about things before jumping to absurd and often hysterical conclusions.

or, why are the airplanes contrails suddenly resembling a fireball?

They are not 'suddenly'. You just dont look up very often.

Originally posted by Insomniac
I'm pretty much convinced that the object was an aircraft, but you've confused me here, so could you explain a little further please?

Sure.

Originally posted by Insomniac
Wouldn't a larger object be affected more severely by drag and a more massive object have more momentum?

Yes. If an object is larger in terms of size, but the same mass as an object that is smaller, there will be more drag on the larger object.

Originally posted by Insomniac
The question that I couldn't find an answer for (and probably expressed badly) is which would prevail in an Earth grazing meteor scenario... The momentum because of the mass or the drag because of the size?

It's impossible to answer that question due to the variables involved: Angle of entry, mass and density of the object, and the velocity of the object will all affect the object's fate.

As defcon5 mentioned earlier, if a meteoroid is grazing the "upper atmosphere" (perhaps "the edge of the meteor meniscus" would be a better term), then it will have fewer collisions with molecular gas in our atmosphere, which would slow it down less than the same meteoroid hitting at a steeper angle.

Originally posted by defcon5
Technically I believe that a grazer is going faster as it is not interacting with the thicker air for as long a period, but you can see them longer. None of that is going to change the other features that are common with fireballs.

You are right about the first part, but I would argue that earthgrazers have quite different characteristics compared with meteoroids hitting at higher angles, not just the unusually long path across the sky.

For example, because of the low entry angle, an earthgrazing meteoroid will not experience as traumatic an atmospheric entry as a meteoroid with a high entry angle. Many meteoroids (because they are relatively fragile), will disintegrate/break up if they hit the atmosphere at too high an angle and/or going too fast, where as they would not at lower entry angles.

The result is that earthgrazers tend to be more constant in brightness over their flight path, whilst meteoroids with higher angles will tend to brighten/flare more randomly as they break up, and larger/faster ones that are made of more fragile material often just disintegrate in a blinding flash of light almost immediately when they hit.

Another example is the meteor train or trail, which may be much less obvious, or even missing altogether with grazers, since it's made up of plasma created from atmospheric molecules (such as oxygen and nitrogen) mostly, and because of the low densities a grazer encounters, there may not be enough for a train/trail to be visible.

There are other characteristics such as the difference in perspective will affect the apparent angular speed of the meteor - read more on the subject here.

reply to post by FireballStorm


Thanks, that just about clears it up for me along with your answer to defcon5.

reply to post by Schkeptick


i live in loxahatchee FL
Me and a friend of mine saw something similar the same day !!! and we are not far from p.b.g fl 10 mins away looks like it was over the corbett a / pratt&wittney area !!!!!
and no worries it was just a plane
i see them all the time out here looks like they are doing a nose dive
but one thing i have noticed is they slowed down with the chemtrails
nice find

reply to post by Human_Alien

dude of course this is a plane it is totally clear!! at least to me it is .
wouldnt a meteorite be burning up and exploding maybe doing a zigzag or 2
cause it looks like that thing has a destination ...to a runway
oh and by they way North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport is close by and they do all sorts of test flights for Sikorsky / Pratt&whitney
But hey i could be totally wrong

This was most likely a daytime fireball meteor the size of a baseball in the upper atmosphere. That's what they look like anyway... spacejunk perhaps, too.

Be nice to data fish and see if there have been more than usual seen. Just in case they are the vangaurd to a meteorite storm that might send us into another stoneage... not that we could do much about it.