Comments on: Fireball over Texas

By: SarahAskew » Space Debris over Texas (or not)

SarahAskew » Space Debris over Texas (or not) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:58:17 +0000

[...] Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog [...]

By: quickster

quickster — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:09:14 +0000

I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and around 10:00-10:15(daylight savings time) -I was taking a walk with my daughter. We both saw a bright fireball traveling across the sky going east -then it took a north turn and just vanished! what was this? The speed of the fireball seemed very paced and controlled.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:54:46 +0000

Interestingly I googled ‘meteor spotted in Dallas skies’ and found this site; this evening (June 5, 2010) at approximately 11:00PM my wife and I saw a huge fireball, presumably a meteor, traveling at a high rate of speed heading NNW to SSE just west of our home in North Dallas, very close to the Plano, TX area. It was bright white and quite large and earily quiet as it screamed across the night sky. We were wondering if anyone else spotted this object.

By: Livi

Livi — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:02:36 +0000

My mom just told me about a fireball she saw on her way to work last year (2009.) It was a Wednesday morning, before 9am. She was on Hillcrest and Forest Lane in Dallas (32.90974,-96.786364). She said a huge fireball (about the size of a truck) came down from the sky and passed right by her car. There were no other cars around her and she said she just hit the gas pedal to get out of there and once she was through the intersection, she saw 2 cars stopped on the side of the road.

By: Gabriel Meltz

Gabriel Meltz — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:22:22 +0000

On sunday the 13th dec 09 my friends and i were on the balcony in balito, South Africa when we saw a ‘ball’ of fire move up from the ocean up into the sky, it moved slowish and we were able to watch it for about 5min, there was no sound and we were about what felt like 800m away from it …?

By: Fireball Over Texas — It is Debris from the Crashed Satellites? | Disinformation

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:34:22 +0000

[...] GO TO FULL STORY [...]

By: Michelle & Tracy

Michelle & Tracy — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:22:47 +0000

We sat on a big hill at a small lake resort in Wakaw, SK, Canada, and saw a “fireball” floating across the sky in no particular direction. It zig zagged through the patch of sky above us, then appeared to be moving towards us, then changed direction and dissappeared back up into the sky. We watched it for about 20 min. It was close enough to make out the shape to be that of a truck sized ball of fire that didn’t make a sound. That’s as scientific as I get on this subject…sorry no co-ordinates.

By: brett

brett — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:56:49 +0000

Me and my family saw these fireballs but not in texas but in cochrane alberta. Just outside calgary. It was doing circles in the sky. We thought it was a airplane or something but it did these sharp turns and weird movements. We drove a little more and then are sight was blocked and then when we looked back we saw two doing these weird movements and staying in the same general area,
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By: What did I see? - Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum

What did I see? - Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:48:44 +0000

[...] sounds like a fireball, a relatively big meteor entering the atmosphere and breaking up, such as this one from over Texas in February, but I haven’t heard of a recent one. __________________ At night the stars put on a show for [...]

By: Debra

Debra — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:45:53 +0000

I saw a “fireball” this evening, April 28, 2009, at about 8:00 p.m. going west to east. I was driving north on I10 in El Paso, Texas.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:28:50 +0000

My mom and I saw the ‘fireball’ this morning when we were on our way into work! We’re in McKinney, Texas!!

By: Esther

Esther — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:53:52 +0000

I just saw one this morning going in to work! At first I thought it was a falling star but is was alot closer than usual and it had a red amber tail then was hidden by buildings !

By: Danish turnover meteorites | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Danish turnover meteorites | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:15:49 +0000

[...] it’ll be a major find for science. I’ll note that this was why I was so excited about the Texas fireball in February– the more eye witnesses you get, and video of course, the more likely you can find the [...]

By: Rosemary

Rosemary — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:13:39 +0000

I would like to know exactly what it was and where did it landed. CNN said it was the size of a truck, and with something that size falling from the sky there sould have been some damage. I feel the volosity alone should have made a whole in the earth big enough for the new to follow up on.

By: Steaven

Steaven — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:56:57 +0000

By the way…

I can confirm that what Jim posted above is exactly what we saw in Hearne..

By: kuhnigget

kuhnigget — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:33:31 +0000

@ Raymond:

No, the object did not pull up. The camera bouncing around and the object moving against the foreground makes it tough to judge its motion just by “eyeballing” it. If you were to plot the course of the meteor against a series of still frames from the video, you’d find it’s moving in a nice linear fashion (well, actually, a slight arc) just the way you’d expect a falling object to move when being pulled down by gravity.

By: kuhnigget

kuhnigget — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:31:05 +0000

@ Kevin:

Your picture is an aircraft contrail, probably at about 35-38 thousand feet, which is expanding into a cirrostratus cloud. The sharp edge on the right is caused by the contrail coming into contact with a front of air (probably a cold front) moving in from that direction. The front compresses the edge of the cloud, making it much more defined than the trailing edge, which is slowly expanding to the left.

The sharp bend is a combination of two things: the aircraft made a slight course change at that point, and the front itself is analogous to a large bubble, with a curved front surface.

As to the contrail stretching from horizon to horizon, that’s simply the laws of perspective coming into play. The aircraft was flying overhead, appearing first over one horizon and then disappearing over the next.

Nothing woo about it, just aircraft and weather. Pretty cool photo, though.

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:02:42 +0000

Just fyi, 6pm in Chita, Siberia translates to 8 am in Austin, Tx [yes, I'm a nerd].

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:55:44 +0000

Raymond, yes, I noticed a sort of “floating leaf” curve in the middle of that trajectory too.

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:54:25 +0000

I was curious about whether folks in Texas had heard about this occurrence in Siberia on the same day [6pm Siberian time]: http://www.allnewsweb.com/page5995996.php

By: Raymond

Raymond — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:52:05 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong,by watching the video did this object change direction, or tried to pull up, not sure. respond

By: Steave

Steave — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:51:23 +0000

I saw it from Quakes at Duval and 43rd, Austin. Very spectacular. I thought it had to be fake, it was so huge..

By: Sammy

Sammy — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:01:52 +0000

It is a UFO it has to be a UFO Nothing but a Meteor or UFO Could do that Come on United States Government tell us the Truth you know something we dont

By: Werner

Werner — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:08:16 +0000

By the way…

I can confirm that what Jim posted above is exactly what we saw in Hearne..

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:02:01 +0000

I live in Madisonville Texas, and heard a noise looked up and saw a fireball heading what seemed to be east to west (or as close to that), I was looking North towards the object and the sun was behind me to the south, I saw what looked like a flame which then turned red. Just as it dissapeared out of sight I could swear the sun reflected of it as if it was a metal object. My Two boys saw it as well and one thought it was a flare. It was fast,very fast. the thing that suprises me is that I actually heard it whoosh through the air, thats what made me look around