Four East Coast Fireball Sightings In One Night

Earlier this week the East Coast and Midwest area of the United States experienced a rare event of FOUR great balls of fire light up the sky within a 5 hour period. The fireballs, all occurring within one and a half hours of each other, were spotted by over 500 witnesses.

Heat Map Showing Fireball Locations

 American Meteor Society reports from the events:

• Event #2305-2014 was seen at approximately 1:11 local time (EDT) in FL and GA.
• Event #2306-2014 – Over 420 witnesses from IL, IN, MI, OH and WI reported a bright fireball over Michigan around 21:55 local time.
• Event #2307-2014 – 30 witnesses from TN, AR, AL, IL, MS, MO and KY reported seeing a fireball over Tennessee at approximately 20:30 local time
• Event #2308-2014 – 42 witnesses in CT, PA, NY, NJ, MA and MD reported seeing a bright fireball in North Easter Pennsylvania near 20:47 local time.

Multiple fireball events in single evenings are not very common, and some have speculated that the four pieces could have broken off a parent body. The American Meteor Society disagrees with this theory, and suggests that based analysis of time, proximity and pointing data gathered, the fireballs are each an unrelated, unique event.

Today In Astronomical History - Uranus!

On March 13th, 1781, William Herschel first observed Uranus using a telescope of his own design while in the garden of his house at 19 New King Street in the town of Bath, Somerset, England, which is now the Herschel Museum of Astronomy.

He reported it a month later on April 26th, but as a comet. He insisted it for a while, but other astronomers deduced otherwise. By 1783, Herschel jumped on the bandwagon and acknowledged it as a planet too. 

Uranus had been observed a bunch of times before, but it was usually mistaken for a star. The earliest recorded observation of Uranus was in 1690 when John Flamsteed cataloged it at least six times as 34 Tauri.

French astronomer Pierre Lemonnier observed Uranus at least twelve times between 1750 and 1769. 

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius at 15,759 miles (25,362 km) with a surface area of 3.121 billion sq miles (8.083 billion km²).

With a mass of 86.81E24 kg, it has the fourth largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is also has the coldest planetary atmosphere in the solar system   with a minimum temperature of 49 K (−224.2 °C). Uranus is icy and windy

Uranus has 27 moons orbiting it. The five major ones are Miranda, Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Ariel, Puck and Cupid, and are named after characters from Shakespeare's work.

Discover More Facts:

http://www.space.com/45-uranus-seventh-planet-in-earths-solar-system-was-first-discovered-planet.html

Earth Narrowly Escapes Asteroid Death Three Times This Week

Photographer: Andreus Agency: Dreamstime.com

Ok, so it wasn't that critical, but space around Earth has been busy this week! A chunk of space rock the size of a garbage truck barely missed Earth yesterday (March 6) making it the third asteroid flyby in the last 24 hours. How close was it? It came about six times closer than the orbit of the moon, or 38,300 miles away.

The 25-foot-wide asteroid 2014 EC that almost crash landed on Earth wasn't as big as the 100-foot asteroid 2014 DX110 which swung by on Wednesday at 217,000 miles away. It is estimated that the chances of these asteroids hitting us are slim at about 1 in over 2 million, but sometimes I feel that's the story they tell us so we don't flip out and start looting.

Will a giant meteor take us out in a fiery blaze one day? Only time will tell, but researchers are pushing for more funds and new fangled equipment to aid the hunt for asteroids near Earth. They have already found thousands and estimate that there are thousands more. Hmm, maybe we should also invest in a disintegration ray if they get too close?

More on the Recent Flybys From Space.com

Small Asteroid Gives Earth a Close Shave, 3rd in 2 Days
http://m.space.com/24968-small-asteroid-2014ec-earth-close-shave.html

Again! New Asteroid Only 44,000 Miles From Earth's Surface | Orbit Animation
http://m.space.com/24945-again-new-asteroid-only-44-000-miles-from-earth-s-surface-orbit-animation.html

100-Foot Asteroid Buzzing Earth Today, Is Closer Than the Moon
http://m.space.com/24928-asteroid-buzzes-earth-today-webcast-2014dx110.html

Photograph of Galaxy Cluster from Deepest Reach Into Space Ever!

Abell 2744
NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz, M. Mountain,
A. Koekemoer, and the HFF Team (STScI) 

Far out!! No, I LITERALLY mean FAR OUT. This image is one of the few captured by NASA's Hubble space Telescope that are from the deepest ever observation of a galaxy cluster to date!

The images of the galaxy cluster known as Abell 2744 also shows background galaxies more than 12 billion light-years away. 

Three NASA space telescopes (Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra) are teaming up to give astronomers their best-ever looks at some of the most distant objects in the universe. 

NASA says that the 3 amigos over there, should be able to spot galaxies that existed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang created our universe 13.8 billion years ago. The telescopes will collectively observe six huge galaxy clusters over the next three years as part of a project called The Frontier Fields.

Although Abell 2744 has been studied before, the newer, fancier Frontier Fields images have shown some new details about the cluster. The super-de-duper brolic space telescope caught sight of dwarf galaxies that are 1/1000th the mass of the Milky Way. While that may not seem very impressive to some, it also found galaxies that are ONE HUNDERED TIMES more massive than our own galaxy! HOLY CRAP, that's a big meatball. Several big meatballs, to be fair.

Check out more the latest photos from Hubble, including Frontier Fields - [CHECK IT!]

Galaxies! Looks like dozens and dozens of them! Imagine how much life they could hold.

Resource:
http://www.space.com/24195-hubble-frontier-fields-photos-aas223.html?cmpid=514630_20140109_16757154