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.
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| 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.
Whats the Difference Between a Fireball and a Meteor?
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| AMS Event #2306 / Bill Ongo |
Fireballs are considered space debris that enters the atmosphere with a larger brightness than your standard meteor. Fireballs are a special meteor sub-class. How can one know if they are looking at a bright meteor or a dim fireball? NASA has designated a fireball as being a meteor with a visual
magnitude that exceeds a -3.
There is at least one picture from the event taken by photographer Bill Ongo of the Aurora Borealis with the fireball in the distance.
While the fire balls have been determined to be unrelated, I like to keep an open mind to unseen variables. Could they actually be part of a larger piece or collectively one piece that has broken? Is it weapon testing? Or is it just a bunch of space junk coincidentally falling at the same time? We sure do have a lot of space junk.
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| Objects in low Earth orbit / via ESOC |
READ MORE:
American Meteor Society - Four Large Fireball Events Over USA
http://www.amsmeteors.org/2014/09/four-large-fireball-events-over-usa/
