Meteor Sighting

[Chimo]

One of the delights of early morning activity is that you see some strange stuff.

Did anyone else see the meteor? this morning at 5.45 AM?

It appeared in the sky east of the Gold Coast at an elevation of about 6o degrees at a bearing of about 80 degrees and was about the size of a thumb nail emitting a bright white /blue light with a yellow / white halo and a yellow tail.

It then proceeded to head down to an elevation of about 45 degrees and got to a bearing of about 60 degrees before the bright light and tail just disappeared.

It looked sort of like this. (without the road!)
http://loymachedo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Russian-Meteor.jpg

Cheers
Chimo

[ozynorts]

Sorry mate, too busy inspecting the inside of my eyelids.

[tunaticer]

I saw the ky brighten this morning about that time Rudd was on the radio figured it was his coming....

Didn't see the object tho, only a brightening at Petrie.

[Peter4]

Often see shooting stars in the eastern sky as we head across to Peel pre-dawn. We view them as fishing 'good luck charms'...

[Chimo]

Not a shooting star, they are just pinpricks of light which this was not.

[Sandman]

no I didn't but was on the road at that time. Many years ago 12? maybe we were sitting at my cousins at yeerongapilly and saw a huge one break in 2 it lit up the skye it seemed like world end at the time very surreal .

[samson]

Yeah looked alright broke into a fair few pieces and was a little larger than your average shooter

[WalrusLike]

Not a shooting star, they are just pinpricks of light which this was not.

There's a gazillion bits and pieces coming in to the earths atmosphere every day. A shooting star is what people call a meteor. It can be a pinhead sized grain of sand or a reasonable lump of rock.

The angle it hits, its physical size and makeup, and its velocity all determine how long it is potentially visible for.

If its markedly brighter than most its called a fireball. Some explode like the Russian one and others just flame out.

The morning is the most likely time to see one.... That's when the part of the earth you are standing on is at the leading face of our path around the sun.... ie you are standing on the bow. :)

As it hurtles in, it ionizers the air in its path and that glowing air can persist for more than half an hour in some cases.

It's most likely you saw a teaspoons worth of pebble hitting the upper atmosphere. Probably 5 times higher than a jet flight path at the lowest point of its entry before disintegrating.

NASA told Congress that more than 90% of big rocks are spotted and tracked. The next day a 500 metre lump of continent killer passed inside the orbit of the moon and was only observed after it had passed.

We really need to fund more astronomy.


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[Noelm]

Just adding to this, I saw a really big one on Saturday night, over the Illawarra region of NSW, very large and lasted quite a while.