Brilliant Daytime Fireball Streaks Over Canada, New York - Video

A brilliant fireball surprised some skywatchers Sunday (May 4) when it streaked across the daytime sky over Toronto in a celestial fireworks display caught on camera by lucky motorists.

A well-placed dashboard video camera captured the light of the bright meteor, which could be seen from parts of Canada and New York on May 4.

The daytime fireball video shows a clear view from a parked car with people chatting in the background.

The meteor comes streaking down from the top of the sky at about the 22-second mark, with a clear outburst of light occurring at about 24 seconds.

"There was a fireball that came down and burned up," one of the people recorded by David Narciso's dashcam said after the fireball streaked through the daylight sky.

"See that line of puff? There was, like, something on fire and then it just stopped."

The fireball is concurrent with, but may not be related to, the Eta Aquarid meteor shower set to peak tonight (May 5) and into the wee hours of tomorrow (May 6) morning.

The annual shower happens when Earth passes through debris left behind by Halley's Comet. This year, the meteors will probably appear low on the horizon

Possible meteor shower May 23-24 as Earth passes through dust trail of 209P/LINEAR

Composite photo of Lyrid meteor shower and non-Lyrids taken with a NASA all-sky camera April 21-23, 2012. 

A new meteor shower emanating from Camelopardalids near the North Star is expected to light up the skies the morning May 24 around 2 a.m. CDT (7 UT). 

Credit: NASA /MSFC /Danielle Moser

On Friday night/early Saturday May 23-24 skywatchers across the U.S. and southern Canada may witness the birth of a brand new meteor shower.

If predictions hold true, Earth will pass through multiple tendrils of dust and pebbly bits left behind by comet 209P/LINEAR, firing up a celestial display on par with the strongest showers of the year. Or better.

Earlier predictions called for a zenithal hourly rate or ZHR of 1,000 per hour, pushing this shower into the 'storm' category.

ZHR is an idealized number based on the shower radiant located at the zenith under ideal skies.

The actual number is lower depending on how far the radiant is removed from the zenith and how much light pollution or moonlight is present.

Peter Jenniskens

Meteor expert Peter Jenniskens of NASA's SETI Institute and Finland's Esko Lyytinen first saw the possibility of a comet-spawned meteor storm and presented their results in Jenniskens' 2006 book Meteor Showers and Their Parent Comets.

Esko Lyytinen

Quanzhi Ye and Paul Wiegert (University of Western Ontario) predict a weaker shower because of a decline in the comet's dust production rate based on observations made during its last return in 2009. They estimate a rate of ~200 per hour.

On the bright side, their simulations show that the comet sheds larger particles than usual, which could mean a shower rich in fireballs. Other researchers predict rates between 200 and 40o per hour.

At the very least, the Camelopardalids – the constellation from which the meteors will appear to originate – promise to rival the Perseids and Geminids, the year's richest showers.

Approximate location of the radiant (blue) of the 209P/LINEAR shower at the peak of the brief maximum around 2 a.m. CDT May 24. 

Between 100-400 meteors may radiate from the dim constellation of Camelopardalids near the North Star. 

This map shows the sky from the central U.S. 

Created with Stellarium

Comet 209P/LINEAR, discovered in Feb. 2004 by the automated Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey, orbits the sun every 5.04 years with an aphelion (most distant point from the sun) near Jupiter.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft with its sample-collecting arm resembles a standing heron and inspired Michael Toler Puzio’s inventive name for the asteroid that the OSIRIS-REx space mission will visit. 

Credit: NASA/Goddard Flight Center/University of Arizona.

In 2012, during a relatively close pass of that planet, Jupiter perturbed its orbit, bringing it to within 280,000 miles (450,000 km) of Earth's orbit.

That set up a remarkably close encounter with our planet on May 29 when 209P/LINEAR will cruise just 5 million miles (8 million km) from Earth to become the 9th closest comet ever observed.

Multiple debris trails shed by the comet as long ago as the 18th century will intersect our planet's path 5 days earlier, providing the material for the upcoming meteor shower/storm.

Read the full article here

Meteorite Shower: South Korea sees large meteor shower

A corner of South Korea is in the grip of a frenzied hunt for valuable space souvenirs, following a rare meteor shower there last week.

Hundreds of people have been scouring hills and rice paddies for meteorites near the southeastern city of Jinju after the shower on March 9, some of them armed with GPS devices and metal detectors, according to media reports.

A specimen of the NWA 869 chondrite (type L4-6), showing chondrules and metal flakes

"Media hype claiming that chondrites (a type of meteorite) could bring you a bonanza sparked the fever for space rocks," an official from the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea (CHAK) told reporters.

Local greenhouse owners have put up signs warning off trespassers after the first large chunk of rock, weighing around nine kilograms (20 pounds), was found in a greenhouse near Jinju.

A second piece weighing four kilograms was found by another local resident.

Scientists confirmed that both rocks, found in the two days after the meteor shower, had come from space.

A US meteorite-hunter has been handing out business cards in the local area, asking people to sell him any shards they find, the Korea JoongAng Daily said.

Chung Hong-Won

Prime Minister Chung Hong-Won suggested the government should secure them for research or as a natural monument.

The CHAK official said the agency would designate any meteorites found as cultural assets to stop them from being taken out of South Korea.

Ownership of the meteorites remains a legally grey area because of the lack of relevant provisions in South Korean civil law, the official added.

A space rock was last found on its soil in 1943, when the Korean peninsula was under Japan's colonial rule.

Meteor showers occur when hundreds of meteors, fragments of dust and rock that burn up as they pass through the Earth's atmosphere, light up the sky in a spectacular display.

Meteorites are meteors that do not burn up completely, surviving the fall to Earth.

Meteor Shower Strikes Russia: 200+ Residents Injured and Buildings Damaged

A meteor in central Russia has caused some injuries and shattered windows, reports say.

Brightly burning rocks could be seen for hundreds of kilometres as they crashed into the Ural region.

Chelyabinsk residents reported shaking ground, windows being shattered and car alarms being set off during the shower.

The traces from falling objects could be seen in Yekaterinburg, about 200km (125 miles) north of Chelyabinsk, a witness told the Reuters news agency.

Credit Reuters

A meteor crashing in Russia's Ural mountains has injured at least 500 people, as the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings.

Most of those hurt suffered minor cuts and bruises but some received head injuries, Russian officials report.

A fireball was seen streaking through the clear morning sky above the city of Yekaterinburg, followed by loud bangs.

A large meteor fragment landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a town in the neighbouring Chelyabinsk region.

Much of the impact was felt in the city of Chelyabinsk, some 200km (125 miles) south of Yekaterinburg.

It suddenly became as bright as if it was day”

Viktor Prokofiev, a Yekaterinburg resident said;

"It was quite extraordinary. We saw a very bright light and then there was a kind of a track, white and yellow in the sky."

"The explosion was so strong that some windows in our building and in the buildings that are across the road and in the city in general, the windows broke."

Officials say a large meteor partially burned up in the lower atmosphere, resulting in fragments falling earthwards.

Thousands of rescue workers have been dispatched to the area to provide help to the injured, the emergencies ministry said.

A total of 102 people called for medical assistance following the incident, according to interior ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov, mostly for treatment of injuries from glass broken by the explosions.

Mr Kolsenikov also said about 6,000 square feet of a roof at a zinc factory collapsed.

Reports conflicted on what happened in the clear skies.

A spokeswoman for the emergency ministry, Irina Rossius, said there was a meteor shower, but another ministry spokeswoman, Elena Smirnikh, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying it was a single meteorite.