Just saw my first Daylight Fireball!!!

Driving to work this morning I just what was my first daylight shooting star! Being an amateur astronomer this actually startled me a bit. I have seen hundreds at night at meteor shower parties and camping. I am almost always keeping my eyes on the sky but this was a little unnerving to see one so bright during the day, given recent reports. It was far to quick to have video or even a picture 1-2 seconds.


I am now wondering too if we are moving into a more active area of space as I do not recall so many reports of daylight fireballs.

I reported it at the American Meteor Society.

www.amsmeteors.org...

I am in the Southern part of the Northwest but noticed another fireball was reported in Texas today at 3:15 a.m.


The other unnerving part...SKYFALL starts playing on the radio 1 minute after I saw it! BRRRR! LOL

Let me know if you saw this!

It does seem like more and more are happening lately.

I've never seen one in the day either so your lucky, its unfortunate you didn't have time to get a picture though.

reply to post by abeverage

I might be asking a dumb question but, I'm going to ask anyway. I don't know much about the galactic plane, but could it be that we are closer to it. I know there was a lot of talk about it, during the whole 2012 thing. Scientist do not know when we will be in the Galactic Plane. I have seen my fair share of meteors as well, never one in the daylight. I just don't remember hearing about this many outside of a shower.

Originally posted by kaidec
reply to post by abeverage

 

I might be asking a dumb question but, I'm going to ask anyway. I don't know much about the galactic plane, but could it be that we are closer to it. I know there was a lot of talk about it, during the whole 2012 thing. Scientist do not know when we will be in the Galactic Plane. I have seen my fair share of meteors as well, never one in the daylight. I just don't remember hearing about this many outside of a shower.

I don't remember this many daylight reports either...

But the galactic plane is not something that will happen for a long, long time.

earthsky.org...

This does not however mean we could not be passing through a more "dusty" area of our own solar system.

Originally posted by Hopechest
It does seem like more and more are happening lately.

I've never seen one in the day either so your lucky, its unfortunate you didn't have time to get a picture though.

Unfortunate? I think you mean impossible......You can't even get your phone out of your pocket open it up and get it to the camera in that amount of time.....

OP I must agree, this is getting a little unnerving with all the reports, it seems like daily, if not multiple per day in recent weeks!

If NASA or the government is aware, I wish they would tell the people so we can look more to the skies to know when things are coming.....But it would cause mass panic, so I understand why they don't. It just sucks to have taxpayer (OUR) money going to these programs, and not knowing important information like this......If there is information we aren't told that is....

reply to post by abeverage


Thanks for answering that question. I just remember talk about it. Someone posted a diagram in a thread about the where the Russia meteor came from. I had no idea there were that many different "meteor belts" going around us. Space is an amazing place and also a cluttered place.

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein

Originally posted by Hopechest
It does seem like more and more are happening lately.

I've never seen one in the day either so your lucky, its unfortunate you didn't have time to get a picture though.

Unfortunate? I think you mean impossible......You can't even get your phone out of your pocket open it up and get it to the camera in that amount of time.....

OP I must agree, this is getting a little unnerving with all the reports, it seems like daily, if not multiple per day in recent weeks!

If NASA or the government is aware, I wish they would tell the people so we can look more to the skies to know when things are coming.....But it would cause mass panic, so I understand why they don't. It just sucks to have taxpayer (OUR) money going to these programs, and not knowing important information like this......If there is information we aren't told that is....

Yeah it was a very quick one. I was just hoping someone else saw it to corroborate the sighting. As far as the GUB telling you? It is sort of like the weatherman being right about the weather LOL sometimes you have to go outside and look...

reply to post by abeverage


"this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius" i love that song..

anyway it seems that things will be getting interesting as we approach the middle of the year. definitely a lot of out of the ordinary occurrences going on out there and we are just going along for the ride...lmao i wish i would have spawned in another solar system

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


Never fear "they" are on th ball

Canadian Asteroid-Hunting Satellite Launched into Space

February 25 (RIA Novosti) - The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on Monday launched a suitcase sized satellite into space aboard an Indian rocket that will search for large asteroids that could impact Earth and keep track of space junk in the solar system.

“The project with the CSA is essentially to survey the sky and get the best, improved near-Earth asteroid population and the ones that can sometimes cross Earth orbit,” said Denis Laurin, a CSA space astronomy program scientist, according to the website space.com.

www.en.rian.ru...

Well... I'm sure we are all safe now

Cool! They're spectacular to witness.

I saw one while driving to work one morning in Wyoming. Out of the corner of my eye I caught what I thought was landing lights of a plane coming in to the local puddle-jumper airport, but the angle was too steep.

When I looked right at it, it was actually a fireball meteor. I could literally see the flames rippling off of it and chunks of debris tearing off and trailing behind.

It must have been a great viewing angle too, because it seemed very slow compared to any other meteor I've ever witnessed.

Truly an awesome sight to behold!

You would think by now that TPTB would alert us lowly citizens of earth that we are passing through a very densely populated part of space where this debris is going to rain down on us like this.

But now, we remain in the dark, as usual. We are not worthy to know such things.

Originally posted by phantomjack
You would think by now that TPTB would alert us lowly citizens of earth that we are passing through a very densely populated part of space where this debris is going to rain down on us like this.

But now, we remain in the dark, as usual. We are not worthy to know such things.

Don't panic the sheep. They do stupid stuff like run through fences...

Or start looting and burning cars...

I'm sure the logic goes something like that.

Originally posted by tjack
Cool! They're spectacular to witness.

I saw one while driving to work one morning in Wyoming. Out of the corner of my eye I caught what I thought was landing lights of a plane coming in to the local puddle-jumper airport, but the angle was too steep.

When I looked right at it, it was actually a fireball meteor. I could literally see the flames rippling off of it and chunks of debris tearing off and trailing behind.

It must have been a great viewing angle too, because it seemed very slow compared to any other meteor I've ever witnessed.

Truly an awesome sight to behold!

I have seen one other "Fireball" but it was at night. I never seen one during the day it was amazing!

The way to tell if the fallings are picking up is if one or two more Russian style meteors streak overhead a city somewhere on earth. Having one of those "100-year meteors" is interesting, any more or a slew of them would force the media and astronomers - even governments - to say something about them. As my dear old granny used to say "Look to the skies!" /satire, that last part. sometimes you have to say it around here/

Not sure if people are just reporting more incidents or if they are actually occurring far more often, but if you look at the total number of reports by year from the site the OP reported his fireball to, it has increased at least 200% since 2005. The number of reports YTD in 2013 is approximately the same as the total amounts reported for the whole year in 2005. Last year also seemed to have significantly more reports than the prior year (2011-2012).

reply to post by HmmmCurious


Hmm.. you make a very good point.

It could be both.

Last year I saw my first fireball while driving home from southwest Washington. I thought it was a very fast, silent jet at first, but then it disappeared, like a firework ember. It was during the August meteor shower (Perseid?) I told everyone and wished I could've video-ed it. It was so beautiful. Maybe I should invest in a Russian dashboard cam.

I didn't know that site existed, so I didn't report it.

Perhaps people are reporting more because they know of the site to report it and maybe the site is getting more hits because average people are seeing more meteors and telling their friends and/or asking google, and are then being told to report it.

Originally posted by HmmmCurious
Not sure if people are just reporting more incidents or if they are actually occurring far more often, but if you look at the total number of reports by year from the site the OP reported his fireball to, it has increased at least 200% since 2005. The number of reports YTD in 2013 is approximately the same as the total amounts reported for the whole year in 2005. Last year also seemed to have significantly more reports than the prior year (2011-2012).

Yeah...I noticed that too...

Originally posted by collietta
Hmm.. you make a very good point.

It could be both.

Or it could just be that more people are reporting them, which is what Bob Lunsford (the Operations Manager/Journal Editor of the AMS) thinks, as I posted here.

Originally posted by collietta
Last year I saw my first fireball while driving home from southwest Washington. I thought it was a very fast, silent jet at first, but then it disappeared, like a firework ember. It was during the August meteor shower (Perseid?) I told everyone and wished I could've video-ed it. It was so beautiful. Maybe I should invest in a Russian dashboard cam.

Yes, the Perseids meteor shower in August. It's one of the best times to catch bright meteors and fireballs. Every year that the sky remains clear for the Perseids I see at least a few fireballs. Last year was a bit of an average year according to reports, but I was clouded out for the peak night. This year is looking more promising, and 2016 is predicted to be an even better year. Computer molding and forecast predictions for meteor showers are actually quite advanced and accurate now.

Originally posted by collietta
I didn't know that site existed, so I didn't report it.

Perhaps people are reporting more because they know of the site to report it and maybe the site is getting more hits because average people are seeing more meteors and telling their friends and/or asking google, and are then being told to report it.

I think this is almost certainly playing a part - people in general seem to be more aware of meteors now than they were 5 or 10 years ago, and also the various sites where they can be reported.

reply to post by FireballStorm


If there is another event like the Russian one we will need to re-think if this is more reporting. But I also think it is an uptick as I cannot recall a lot of daylight fireballs and let alone I have never seen one until now.

I photograph meteors www.flickr.com...@N02/4889518578/in/photostream so although I am an amateur I am also not clueless.

reply to post by abeverage


Congratulations on your sighting they certainly are impressive , mine was a night time sighting a few years ago but it set my heart pounding and it's something I won't forget