The first video via a local sheriff, now on YouTube. The fireball comes in late. The second video is especially interesting due to the city skyline. Now it's being reported as either an asteroid, or rocket debris.
The fireball in the sky last night was originally being reported as a meteor or a meteorite; however, the fireball in the sky is actually now being called either asteroid debris or rocket debris.
Whatever it was, it's pretty cool. The one video has both, so I dropped the first one.
Since a 'meteorite' is technically that portion of a meteor or meteroid that survives passage through the Earth's atmosphere and reaches the surface, that's just a correction of terminology. If it was a natural object (a rock) it was a meteor, meteoroid or (very, very small) asteroid. If it was man-made, it was debris from a satellite or spacecraft.
Posted by: RNB | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 09:18 PM
Well, if it hadn't been for Obama's nuclear summit, I woulda thought it was Canada nuking us.
Posted by: Vern Smoot | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 09:26 PM
There is no scientific difference between a "meteoroid" and a "very small asteroid burning up in earth's atmosphere." All "meteoroid" means is that it entered the atmosphere.
I don't believe this was rocket debris. It was claimed to have been visible for 15 minutes, and it's bright flash near the end of it's trail is fairly typical of meteroids which explode when they hit the denser atmosphere near the surface. Rocket parts typically do not last as long, nor do they usually explode in that manner.
I imagine there's a whole lot of meteorite hunters descending on the area it came down right about now.
Posted by: CosmicConservative | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 09:37 PM
Did anyone besides me read J.M.S.'s Rising Stars? It's amusing to think that that story began this way...
Posted by: zeonxavier | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 09:49 PM
Ditto everything cosmic conservative said. Either way, the thing seen was a meteor. "Meteoroid" = still in space. "Meteor" = presently burning through the atmosphere as a giant fireball; "Meteorite" = once it's landed. An asteroid that hits earth first becomes a meteoroid, then a meteor, and finally a meteorite. What they mean by "asteroid debris" I have no idea. But I find it slightly startling that they suggest that it could be a part of a "rocket" without any idea what rocket it might be or who launched it. Is this even possible? I mean, it's not as if rockets are shooting into space willy-nilly all over the earth all the time with nobody knowing when they're launched or who's launching them.
Posted by: Uriel | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 09:56 PM
I'm thinking that "15 minutes" should have read "15 seconds" - based on the amount of time it was visible in those videos and how much of the sky it covered in just a few seconds.
Posted by: Hartley | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 09:58 PM
Earthquakes all over the place. Giant fireballs in the sky. And Iceland just sneezed and shut down airtravel to Europe.
Screw rationality -- I'm joining a Mayan blood cult and moving to the mountains!
Posted by: three chord sloth | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 11:31 PM
If it were an old booster or dead spy sat reentering, the Air Force and various other international agencies who track the larger stuff's orbits would have given advance warning or at least issued statements that it was a known object after the fact. Clearly it wasn't something small like a lost tool or some bolts.
Space vehicles tend to be rather fragile and not be very dense too. The bulk of them breaks up pretty quick. Something that persisted as long as this did was likely quite dense.
Posted by: PA | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 11:34 PM
UJmmmmmmmm, "Health Care Reform" burning up on (re-) entry?
Posted by: Patrick Carroll | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 01:12 AM
That's not rocket debris. That there is Obama's poll numbers.
Similar video taken a couple years back in Edmonton, Canada... this is just as cool looking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_2aX-784sw
Posted by: DaveS | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 03:42 AM
Anybody but me see a rocket hit this thing? Looks like the first one missed and the 2nd made impact.
Posted by: Keith Grubb | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 04:07 AM
Great balz O fire. Was that the democrat party burning out?
Posted by: joyMc | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 06:12 AM
Anybody but me see a rocket hit this thing?
No
Posted by: bandit | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 08:30 AM
"Something that persisted as long as this did was likely quite dense"
democrat.......dense, persistent.
Posted by: joyMc | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 09:27 AM
EXACTLY! You see it entering from the side and then KABLAM! The government was experimenting again and something went wrong and they had to explode it before it hit USA soil. hmmmm Research Tesla.
Posted by: M. Jay | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:32 AM
It was the SDF-1.
Posted by: Robokeith | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:57 AM
Iranians or Russians or AQ lob one in -- or a meteor too large comes in -- and it's met by an airburst ABM or a laser/laser-esque orbiting device? Doesn't radiation above some altitude dissipate there and up? Meteoroid fragments may not be found ... just thinking ....
Posted by: David R. Graham | Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:20 PM