* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

Cardiff meteor 21.09.12

Blobrana · L

RE: UK Fireball 21.09.12

Blobrana · L

Friday nights 'meteor' sighting sparks enquiries from North East Lincolnshire residents

More than 4,000 people checked the Grimsby Telegraph's website for information after unidentified bright lights lit up the skies on Friday night.
Local stargazers were baffled at about 11pm when what looked like shooting stars shot through the sky
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Blobrana · L

More on the 21 September 2012 fireball: why it definitely was a meteor

It would take a re-entering satellite travelling at 8 km/s (the orbital speed at decay altitudes) about 138 seconds or roughly 2.25 minutes to travel this distance. While the reported fireball durations are long, none of the reports nor videos comes even remotely close to that value.
A meteoric fireball travelling at the lowest speed possible for such an object, 11.8 km/s, would take 93 seconds to travel that distance. This is still longer than almost all of the reports suggest, but clearly getting closer.
If we take an estimated duration of 60 seconds, the 1100 km trajectory length results in a speed of approximately 18 km/s.
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Blobrana · L

Norfolk astronomer: 'meteor' was space junk

Reports that the object was a meteor have been discredited by Mark Thompson, presenter of Stargazing live, who says it was in fact pieces of space debris, known as space junk.
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Blobrana · L

"Obviously I don't know how big but I would guess maybe a metre by a metre, the size of a tea chest" - John Davies from The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh

Blobrana · L

Fireball may have been space junk

David Moore of Astronomy Ireland said the cause of the fireball was not yet clear.

"It's a piece of space debris, but whether it's manmade or natural is not known".

He said it was too slow for natural debris and was going the wrong direction for manmade debris.

"It's probably a space rock that has skidded across the atmosphere".

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Blobrana · L

Spectacular meteor shower over Scotland was 'space junk' returning to Earth, say experts

Astronomers suspect a disused satellite hurtling back to Earth was responsible for the spectacular space show on Friday night.

"We're pretty sure this was a man-made object re-entering the atmosphere. Its unlikely it would have even reached Earth - and even if part of it did, it looks like it was heading out to sea" - Bob Graham, of the Association in Scotland to Research Astronomics.