mckitterick | Astro-Porn of the Day: Most amazing meteor fireball EVER.

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Astro-Porn of the Day: Most amazing meteor fireball EVER.

WOW! Just an hour or so ago, on my way home after class and picking up the last of the big donation to the Center, I saw a bright fireball transform over a period of a second or two into a streaming green streak across the sky. AMAZING! It went from bright white to vivid green, as if a lurid painter had broken open a lightbulb and painted phosphorescent pigment across the sky, which glowed for a few seconds afterward. It looked sort of like this, only more dramatic:

What a treat after a massively long day!

Somewhere east of Lawrence, Kansas, a pile of space-debris lay smoking in the dry soil.

Chris

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Ooh, very cool...

"Somewhere east of Lawrence, Kansas, a pile of space-debris lay smoking in the dry soil."

Or perhaps there's a pile of wreckage as a farm-couple adopts the small infant that crawls from the strange debris... The sole survivor of a distant planet now destroyed.... Nah, that would be silly (or Smallville).
:-P

Perhaps a long way east of Lawrence.

When I was a child in northern Michigan, I saw the biggest one I ever saw. It turned out to crash in southern Ontario.

When I toured the Kansas Meteorite Museum in Haviland, we were comparing memories and the curator saw the same meteor as a child in the Detroit area.

Wow, what a cool thing to have witnessed!

COOL!

i have spent some time star gazing, and have seen my share of lowly shooting stars...but never anything like what you describe here. I WANNA SEE ONE, TOO!!

Hahahha! Trust me, the thought of spacecraft-debris did cross my mind.

Oh, I understand about that, but it's still fun to think that it was just east of here! People saw that big asteroid-fireball I posted about last week all over the western states.

It made a 13-hour workday totally worth it. If I'd gotten home at the normal time, I wouldn't have seen this amazing fireball.

x2!

If you watch the skies on a regular basis, you'll get your chance. And it'll happen when you least expect it!

What's the second sentence?

Awesome.

I saw something like that a long time ago, over Lawrence, believe it or not, that streaked overhead and broke up into several pieces headed southwest. It was at night and I thought it was an airplane until individual dots started turning off, and it was moving way too fast. Never did hear any more about it.

It's cool just to star gaze and what you can see on any given night. If not too late you can always see satellites and I find if I stare at the sky long enough I always see at least one meteor, even if a faint one.

That's referring to the huge book & stuff donation; I should make a full-on post about this! Our little research library just increased its holdings by about 7000 titles!

It made me super happy.

Cool! Lawrence is a fireball magnet.

I know what you mean. When I lived in a dark locale, I used to love to just lie on my back and watch the sky.

You were very kind to share it with us. Might I send you an email? I have a request.

I saw something like that during the Leonids six years ago...

So cool! Lawrence is also where I saw my Best Meteor Ever. I was standing on the deck at our old house there, with a Russian named Eugene. (Remember that weird thing where Bob Dole somehow got a random bunch of Russians to come and visit Lawrence on some kind of trumped-up abortive trade mission, right before the fall of the Soviet Empire? Well, if you don't, it doesn't matter, but trust me, we had a Russian guest we'd just picked up from the airport and we'd never seen him before.) We were making small talk and all of a sudden, this HUGE meteor scorched across the sky. It got brighter instead of fading, and it looked awfully low down. It wasn't just a spark--it was a big blob that actually glowed red. I started hollering "Oh my God! Oh my God, did you see that!" Poor Eugene thought I had gone nuts and nervously patted my arm. "Eet's okay, eet's okay," he said. I think maybe he thought I thought we were being bombed or something. It was an interesting start to his visit.

Sure - I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Neato!

Hahahaha - that's awesome! Funny that's what he first thought. The Soviets made some awesome telescopes. Their specialty was the Maksutov.

It was -- Kept me out in the yard until 3-frost in the morning. That was a good display, that year.

Awesome!

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