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Originally posted by H1ght3chHippie
After reading how this detection mechanism works there's a question popping into my mind:
It's a little bit OT, but it does detect ionized air molecules utilizing a radar beam. These molecules are ionized by the friction of the fast moving meteors with the air. Now wouldn't a fast moving UFO cause the same friction and could thus be detected with this neat apparatus ?
What I'm saying is .. are we sure all these streaks we see are really meteors, or may some of them be a different kind of breed ? Just wondering.
ETA to clarify: With streaks I mean the coloured peaks on the detection website. I checked it a couple of times today and there's basically always something being detected.edit on 17-10-2012 by H1ght3chHippie because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by dodgygeeza
Previous Episodes on Mass Hysteria:
AIDS
Global Nuclear Annihilation
Over-Population
Destruction of the Ozone-Layer
Acid Rain
Y2K
Avian Flu
Swine Flu
Terrorism
Global Warming
Next Weeks Episode:
Dooms-day asteroids (It's gonna be a good 'un!)
Originally posted by lurksoften
Meteor Shower Lights Up Bay Area Skies
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A meteor shower spawned by history’s most famous comet lit up skies above the Bay Area on Wednesday night, and experts at NASA and the National Weather Service said more would appear with increasing frequency through this weekend. Space.com reported that the Orionid meteor shower should reach its zenith overnight from Saturday to Sunday as Earth plows through debris shed by Halley’s Comet on its path around the sun. The most impressive display should come a few hours before dawn Sunday, scientists predicted.
Source
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
What I do find interesting is that say in the nineties, you might see on the computer or hear about in the news or read about in the newspaper about one of these very bright fireballs - maybe once every few years. Even five years ago, when youtube was going strong, that was the case.
Even at the beginning of this year a big fireball made headlines, and the story says the last big one before that in Western Canada, which is a huge area, was in 2008.
Now we are getting bright fireballs around the world every week, and sometimes for consecutive days - and the media pays less attention to them - because they are not a big deal anymore.
Just a few very recently off the top of my head - the one seen streaking in Nevada/California with the boom, the one in the UK a couple weeks ago, the bunch of them in Colorado for which airspace was closed and they were thought to be the cause of forest fires - I'm sure you can think of more recent ones.
Prarie fireball big news only 8 months ago:
Alberta/Saskatchewan Fireball lights up Prarie Skies
Originally posted by H1ght3chHippie
After reading how this detection mechanism works there's a question popping into my mind:
It's a little bit OT, but it does detect ionized air molecules utilizing a radar beam. These molecules are ionized by the friction of the fast moving meteors with the air. Now wouldn't a fast moving UFO cause the same friction and could thus be detected with this neat apparatus ?
What I'm saying is .. are we sure all these streaks we see are really meteors, or may some of them be a different kind of breed ? Just wondering.
ETA to clarify: With streaks I mean the coloured peaks on the detection website. I checked it a couple of times today and there's basically always something being detected.edit on 17-10-2012 by H1ght3chHippie because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by prevenge
i saw this.. was very startling... i could see chunks falling off it.. and it wasn't as fast as a "shooting star" . probably slowed down by the friction in the atmosphere...
Experienced sky watchers on SeeSat-L may find it difficult to believe that anyone could misidentify a re-entry as a spaceship, but human perception is notoriously fallible, and no one is immune. Much depends on the circumstances and personal experience. Driving through the wilderness under a pitch black sky, and suddenly faced with a slowly moving formation of brilliant lights can be awe-inspiring and even terrifying. The human mind races to make sense of the unfamiliar, drawing on experience that may be inadequate. Depth perception can play tricks, such that something 200 km away, 100 km long, and moving at 7 km/s, seems to be just 200 m away, 100 m long, and moving 7 km/h - the angular velocity is roughly the same.
Due to their great brightness large meteors often create a remarkable optical illusion in which it appears that they have hit the ground somewhere nearby. The glowing fireballs we see in the night sky are caused by atmospheric pressure and friction, but meteors stop ablating (burning) approximately seven miles high. If you are lucky enough to witness a bright fireball, and the flame goes out while it's directly overhead, it is possible that the meteorite will land nearby. When we see a bright shooting star apparently landing close by, what we are usually seeing is a fireball arcing away, over the horizon, still high up in the atmosphere. Due to the curvature of the Earth, the fireball may seem to hit the ground, but has in fact just moved out of our field of view and gone beyond the horizon. Because of its extreme brightness the fireball appears — to our human eyes — to be much closer than it actually is. It's something I, myself, have been fortunate enough to witness a couple of times and it's frustrating because it does look as if the meteorite landed "just over there." However, it probably landed hundreds of miles away. Another thing to consider is that when a meteorite lands near observers, those witnesses report hearing loud sonic booms, and/or "whizzing" noises. If no sound accompanied the spectacle, then the meteor was probably a great distance away. But at least you had the privilege of witnessing a real fireball!
Originally posted by FireballStorm
The most extreme example of this is what is known as a "point meteor". Basically, it's a meteor that is heading directly towards you, so even though it might be moving at 72 km/s (the maximum speed allowed for meteoroids in solar orbits), it won't appear to move at all to you, although to someone else seeing the same meteor 100 km away, it would look like a normal fast moving meteor.
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
All I know is that for me, ten or twenty years ago one of these would be big news, even a year ago or five years ago one of these would be big news (as demonstrated in the link above), yet now seem commonplace.
The next logical question is what is causing the apparent increase in fireballs
seen this month? The key word here is apparent. It could very well be that there is no increase at all, but rather a marked increase in the number of reported fireballs. Mr. Hankey
has worked with the AMS in providing an easy way to report fireball sightings
and the general public has responded with a record
number of reports so far in January. If you look through the last five years
that the AMS has available, you will see an increase in
every year. The increase is certainly not as dramatic as January 10 vs. January
11, but that again can be attributed to the recent
change in format. I am also confident that no matter the number of NEO's in
January 2012, there were still be more fireball reports
in January 12 vs. January 11.
Interesting subject and I appreciate the contributions of Dirk, Mike, Wayne, and
Carl!
Bob Lunsford
Most large fireballs are green. And it certainly is not clear to me that we
are seeing any statistically significant increase in fireball activity. Like
so much in nature, meteor frequencies are described by Poisson statistics,
and that means we'll naturally see periods of increased activity and periods
of decreased activity. Our brains want to connect this to something
physical, but I doubt anything is really there.
Chris
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
I'm sure many other members would agree with me and I have heard as much from other members.
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
I don't know why you are trying so hard to convince me otherwise of what I know to be the case.
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
You mention these fireballs have been active since 2007 - sure, that is recent history. People still posted videos to the internet before the advent of youtube in 2005 or would contact news organizations to share their video recordings - and ten years ago, in 2002, these sightings were extremely rare.
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
So if a meteor was a "point" meteor, and it was heading directly to you or away from you,
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
wouldn't you see it pass overhead, or have just seen it pass overhead?
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
Also, in years or decades gone by these were always described as bright yellow or orange.
There has been much discussion of late about "green" meteors and
fireballs. The phenomena of the green meteor historically became a rally
point for observes in the 1940's under Lincoln LaPaz. And the "red
scare" of the 1950's. Now for the past year or so this colour green is
quite popular. Why? What is the significance for observers to view green
meteors? And can any one give an explanation about the composition of
the spectrum of a "green" meteor as opposed to the spectrum analysis of
a "bluish" fireball?
George John Drobnock
I recall viewing the Perseid meteor shower with veteran observer Felix Martinez
back in the early 80's. A majority of the bright meteors he saw back then were
green. To me, these meteors were nearly all white or slightly yellowish.
Definitely not green to me! So when two experienced observers see different
colors in the same meteors, one has to wonder just how subjective this topic
is...
Clear Skies!
Bob Lunsford
I recall my fellow meteor veteran Norman McLeod mentioning in the past
that observed meteor color is one of the most subjective parameters in
meteor watching. No two people see color the same way at low light levels
or for the very short periods of time that most meteors are seen. My
experience over the years tends to bare him out on that for sure.
Although I usually observe solo now, back in the 70s and 80s, I had many
group watches with both neophytes and experienced folks and rarely would
anyone agree on the color of an observed meteor. Bright fireballs tend to
"shock" the observer also and can lead to emotional reactions and
recollections that may not be entirely accurate.
Originally posted by PlanetXisHERE
Now many people describe them to be greenish. The combustion of what mineral/element is greenish, and why is it being seen now and never or rarely before?
I don't believe there is much evidence to support the idea that meteor
color (as seen with the eye) has much relationship to the meteoroid
composition- at least, when we are talking about fireballs. There is
good evidence, however, that the color is mainly the from ionization of
atmospheric gas- especially oxygen. I've personally collected images of
several bright fireballs through a 501 nm narrow band (6 nm) filter,
which argues for a very strong [OIII] component to the light.
FWIW, a quick review of the meteor reports (nearly all fireballs) I've
received in the last 11 years shows this:
9110 reports total
3735 (41%) report some sort of color
3069 (82% of those reporting color) report some shade of green
I've long since concluded that bright fireballs are almost always green.
The exceptional cases are those which are not (and these are almost
always reported as white).
The only other color that tends to show up in witness descriptions is
red/orange, and a close look reveals that this is almost always at the
end of the path, when it is easily explained as the output of a cooling
blackbody radiator.
Chris