Comments on: VERY bright and spectacular meteor seen over northern UK!

By: Marco Langbroek

Marco Langbroek — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:52:29 +0000

Ongoing work now suggests this was a small chunk of an Aten asteroid:

http://sattrackcam.blogspot.nl/2012/09/the-21-september-fireball-small-aten.html

By: chris carr

chris carr — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:46:31 +0000

I saw this from Sunderland. I thought it was a firework at first, then it didn’t explode. Was pretty damn cool whatever it was.

By: Jefferson Pugliese

Jefferson Pugliese — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:17:21 +0000

By: Marco Langbroek

Marco Langbroek — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:59:16 +0000

Some additional arguments as to why this was certainly a meteoric fireball and not man-made space debris:

http://sattrackcam.blogspot.nl/2012/09/more-on-21-september-2012-fireball-why.html

By: Colin McGookin

Colin McGookin — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:48:34 +0000

I was looking out of my house in Dromara Northern Ireland admiring the starry night when it emerged as a bright white ball above a tree 2 fields away. I thought it was a plane coming straight towards me and that it was going to crash into us. I was yelling for my son in the next room to come and kept watching as it rose in the sky and began to break into several white balls with orange tails. It looked enormous and like the balls had patterns on them and it also looked like they were moving in slow motion. They went directly over my house and I ran to grab my son and we raced outside. The balls became more orange now as they headed west and it looked like they were in a perfect military formation, very steady. We didn’t hear any sound except the mooing of cattle and watched as they got lower to the horizon. We both said that we had seen something very special. I was shaking for quite a while from my initial fear that it was a plane going to crash into us.

By: Tom Hartley

Tom Hartley — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:37:44 +0000

I’ve had trouble posting this account, but I’ll try again…

I was watching TV with the light on in my living room with the curtains on the North-facing window open. The fireball was bright enough to catch my eye in my peripheral vision.

I live just South of York, and at this point it would have been somewhere along a line passing North-South through York. The object flickered bright blueish white with a long gold trail and brightened before breaking up into still very bright pieces leading gold streaks across the sky. I would estimate it was at an elevation of around 30 degrees, and was in my field of view for around 10s during which it moved smoothly and continuously from East to West through and arc of around 80 degrees without dropping appreciably before I lost sight of it. I estimate that at its largest/nearest the fireball was a little smaller than my thumbnail at arms length. A little smaller than the moon would appear, but much larger than any other object in the night sky.

After the meteor had passed, I tweeted within 30s. The tweet is timed at 10:56.

I’m hoping that someone will get to the bottom of it. Most of the BBC reports have been rather dismissive talking about “tiny fragments” of space junk. It doesn’t really accord with what I saw which was very big, bright and visible across large parts of Northern England, Scotland, Ireland and North Wales. I’ve seen many shooting stars and this was something entirely different.

By: Benedict

Benedict — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 01:08:12 +0000

I saw this over Bristol on my way into the city centre, at first I thought it was a firework, then I thought it was a plane in a mess, which slightly worried me because my parents were on their way back from Turkey. It did look really cool though, pretty big pretty fast with a long trail behind it. =D I love science!

By: Infinite123Lifer

Infinite123Lifer — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:39:17 +0000

7001: A space debris odyssey? And the Phil9000 runs the Discovery.

By: apeleytheros

apeleytheros — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:55:55 +0000

anyone spotted those giant robots, or are still hiding?

By: sam

sam — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 09:43:22 +0000

I was in the lake district (near kendal), and was already looking at the sky. When me and my partner first noticed it, it was a bright white light stationary not far above the horizon. Looking at maps of the area, it must have been at at about E or ENE. It was obviously to bright to be a planet, so we guessed it was a plane. It looked like it was coming in to land, though there is no airport near by. After maybe 10 seconds it was clear that it was moving, it was getting brighter and rising in more above the horizon. Then we saw the orange fragments behind it. I’m not sure if they were obscured before, or if that was the point it started to break up. As it came above us more fragment broke off. A few minutes later (we guessed 2 minutes, but its hard to know) we heard a faint double boom, presumably a sonic boom.

Speedwise it was a like a low flying plane, but obviously it would have been going many times fast, due to the height. It seemed to be moving much slower than a typical meteor, but its hard to just their speed as they are on visible for such a short time. From the brightness, length of time it was visible, and the number of fragment that broke off, i think it must have been pretty large and so i doubt the man made satellite hypothesis.