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Green Fireballs.....

N

Nap

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Last night after work (around 11:05pm CST, MS), I saw a huge green fireball in the sky. It was possibly one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed. I figured there would be other sightings or news about this but have yet to see anything. Did any of you see it?

Here is a link about one that was sighted recently, apparently they seem to be fairly common.

WATCH: Huge, Green Fireball Streaks Across Midwest Sky : The Two-Way : NPR
 
TheGoverness said:
Damn UFO's.
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Not even going to lie, for a minute I had the typical redneck response of thinking it was an alien. I had seen meteor showers and stuff before, I had never seen a bright neon green fireball in the sky before. It was almost like something straight out of a Superman comic. It was roughly twice as bright as a full moon and lit up the sky green. Sadly, I only saw it for like 2 seconds and it was gone.
 

I've seen lots of them, I am an astronomy geek. But...I was in Kona with my GF and we were at an outside bar, and I was telling her about how there was a meteor shower that night....and a few minutes later...bam, big green fireball with a long ionization tail. Way cool.
 

Sweet. The best part about last night was that a good friend and coworker of mine is an astronomy geek as well (He just spent like 5k on a nice telescope). He was outside smoking by the door when it happened but was looking in the wrong direction. I yelled at him to ask him if he had seen it and he had no clue what I was talking about. He is so pissed he missed it.
 

I had a somewhat similar experience with the last big earthquake in new zealand. I just happened to be looking up at the sky when the earthquake hit and saw the sky light up in a brief flash. Never knew earthquakes could do that.
Earthquake: strange glowing in the sky possibly 'earthquake lightning' | Stuff.co.nz
One theory suggests dormant electrical charges in rocks are triggered by the stress of the Earth's crust and plate tectonics, transferring the charge to the surface where it appears as light.
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Yeah, that happens a lot! I've seen some great things, watched a tiny asteroid whizz by earth one night, a tiny pulsing little dot in the scope, very dim, and it was a near full moon night, was lucky to see it. I've watched Jupiter's moons move in front of the planet, then later cast their elongated shadow on the planet. Lots of comets, lots of deep sky stuff when I can get the scope 50 miles out of town...
 

Nice, do you do any of the photography? That is what he is trying to get into. I have been joking with him all day about how that expensive telescope doesn't show much when you are looking in the wrong direction.
 
Nap said:
Nice, do you do any of the photography? That is what he is trying to get into. I have been joking with him all day about how that expensive telescope doesn't show much when you are looking in the wrong direction.
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A bit, I have the adapter and all that, but, for any good photography, I need a guide scope that plugs into the scope's computer and gets rid of all the wobble. I've done some pictures, but I get about 45 seconds exposure before they get messed up. I have a Meade LX 10 GPS.
 
Thousands of meteorites land every day but they are too small to notice.
 
Nap said:
Sweet, I never knew that. We have had a few small quakes around here, will have to remember to look up the next time it happens.
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The science on this is a bit vague considering the difficulty in taking measurements. But i think small earthquakes might not be enough to see any lights
I was referring to the kaikoura earthquake. Believe me no one considers a 7.8 as small.
 
rhinefire said:
Thousands of meteorites land every day but they are too small to notice.
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Oddly enough...there are treks to Antartica to find meteorites, they have been falling there for years (no more than anywhere else), however, they are pretty easy to spot against the landscape there.
 
soylentgreen said:
The science on this is a bit vague considering the difficulty in taking measurements. But i think small earthquakes might not be enough to see any lights
I was referring to the kaikoura earthquake. Believe me no one considers a 7.8 as small.
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The ones here are so small you hardly notice unless someone tells you. I was at work and couldn't feel it but we had racks of parts making all kinds of noise and had no idea why until it said earthquake on the news.
 
Nap said:
The ones here are so small you hardly notice unless someone tells you. I was at work and couldn't feel it but we had racks of parts making all kinds of noise and had no idea why until it said earthquake on the news.
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You will notice the big ones. Scary as. When your house rocks back and forwards for about 30 seconds then stops and then does it again. The worst part is the sitting there waiting to see if it happens again. It is not nice when you cannot even trust the ground your standing on.
 
I'm guessing a greenish meteorite or meteor has copper in it to glow green?

I was once fishing in a boat with my ex brother-in-law and we got pelted with what seems to be tiny rock pellets in broad daylight. There was no shotgun boom or anything like that so I can only surmise they were tiny meteorites. We were also out in the lake a ways.
 

I'd like to just feel what it's like.
 
EnigmaO01 said:
I'd like to just feel what it's like.
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It isa strange thing. If the building doesn't come tumbling down around you then it is the waiting after that is the really scary bit. You sit there thinking, is this it, will it shake again and bring the house down around me. It really is weird when you cannot trust the very ground you stand on. With most natural disasters you can see them coming. Earthquakes, you just do not know.
 
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