Amateur Astronomer Needed

[FritterGirl]

I need the assistance of an amateur atrsonomer or major science geek, if we have any out there, to help me identify what I may have seen on the evening of Monday, December 13 at approximately 5:45 p.m.

I was driving home from work on the Broadway Extension, headed northbound. I was just south of the I-44 interchange, getting ready to cross the highway when I saw a ball of light speeding across the sky in a N/NEasterly direction. From my vantage point it had a "greenish" glow to it. There was no tail, no "trail" of sparks or debris as I've seen with other similar lights (meteors, space junk) that I've seen in the past.

I tweeted out my sighting and another person saw the same thing, but described it as a "giant fireball."

The light disappeared mid-sky, at approximately 60 degrees from the northern horizon. It didn't blink out necessarily, just stopped.

I assume it was something re-entering the atmosphere, but other times when I've seen such phenomena there is usually some kind of tail or residual light that follows it. With this, there was none.

Did anyone else see this / experience it?
Does anyone have any better guesstimate as to what it could have been?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[onthestrip]

Yesterday and last night was the yearly Geminoid (or something like that) meteor shower. It supposedly is one of the most impressive showers of the year. The meteors display several colors (red, green, blue) and there were about 60 of them per hour last night.

[flintysooner]

I saw it. It was magnificent because of how bright it was and how long it was visible. Just breathtaking. I've read some of the reports that described it as a fireball and so on. I felt like it was likely a meteor since this is the time for the Geminid but it was awesome.

Lots of reports though - among others:
http://elpasoallsky.blogspot.com/201...d-ardmore.html

[ksearls]

Fritter! I saw it too! I was sitting in traffic at Classen Circle. It was awesome. I think it was a meteor that almost was a meteorite. It did look like a fireball. I wish I could have taken a picture. It didn't seem like it was so fast, kind of in slow motion. I posted on FB and twitter and was accused of drunkenness.

[skyrick]

Yesterday and last night was the yearly Geminoid (or something like that) meteor shower. It supposedly is one of the most impressive showers of the year. The meteors display several colors (red, green, blue) and there were about 60 of them per hour last night.

Unlikely, because the Geminids were not really viewable until after midnight, when our side of the Earth was facing into the debris field of the Geminds' parent, which I believe is NOT a comet. If FritterGirl saw this object at 5:45 pm it was almost certainly not from the Geminids.

[FritterGirl]

Wow! Glad others saw it, too, and thanks for the link. Looks like others did see a tail of some sorts, where from the angle I was, I didn't see anything of the sort. Was amazed at the size and color.

Guess for now unless it can be confirmed to be a Gemenind, I'll just chalk it up to mystery space rock or debris.

Ha, KSearls. Had I been on FB last night, I would have confirmed the viewing. Maybe then we could have been drunk together!

[onthestrip]

Unlikely, because the Geminids were not really viewable until after midnight, when our side of the Earth was facing into the debris field of the Geminds' parent, which I believe is NOT a comet. If FritterGirl saw this object at 5:45 pm it was almost certainly not from the Geminids.

You may be right, but my educated guess is that this one must have been a big and bright meteor that was visible before it was really dark. I mean, if someone sees something early in the evening streaking accross the sky on the same night that there is a meteor shower, Im going to go with meteor. Thats just my amateur astronomer educated guess.

[skyrick]

You may be right, but my educated guess is that this one must have been a big and bright meteor that was visible before it was really dark. I mean, if someone sees something early in the evening streaking accross the sky on the same night that there is a meteor shower, Im going to go with meteor. Thats just my amateur astronomer educated guess.

I guess it's possible. At that time of day OKC would be 1/4 of the Earth's diameter to the west of the host object's debris field, but if a big enough object entered the atmosphere at a flat enough angle to ride a quarter of the way around the world before disintegrating, then it may be visible at dusk. Or I could just be talking out of my a**.

[dismayed]

The Geminids are called that because they appear to radiate from the constellation Gemini. In reality they are the result of the Earth's path crossing with the path of asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The Earth is constantly being pelted with debris through this period of time.... Typically a small "shooting star" that you see during the Geminids is the result of a fragment the size of a grain of sand burning up as it enters our atmosphere. The ability to observe more meteors late at night has a lot to do with relative brightness of the objects and light pollution. If you saw a large object, perhaps the size of a silver dollar, it's possible that it would be visible at dusk as you observed.

I fired up some astronomical plotting software and have found that at the date and time you gave above, the constellation of Gemini was directly under the horizon moving from the North to the North East, eventually emerging to the East over the course of three or so hours. Based on the constellation's position and your description of viewing Northbound on I-235 it seems very likely to me that you saw a Geminid meteor.

It is interesting that you report it had a greenish glow to it. The majority of scientists believe that this is the result of the type of metals contained in the meteor fragment and their heating up as they enter our atmosphere. There is a growing group that believes while this is true, that specifically with green meteors that this colorization is often caused by the way air and plasma interact in the upper atmosphere. It's complicated but the bottom line is that there is some evidence that if you see a meteor burn green it may have a greater probability of actually touching down on the ground somewhere, becoming a meteorite.

For those of you who observed this, you should report your sighting! The link below is to a scientific organization that tracks these sort of things; it's quick and easy. If enough people report what they saw from various vantage points there is a chance that a trajectory can be extrapolated, and a recovery team could be sent to try and find fragments. Who knows, maybe they will find the fragment and you might be responsible for some great new scientific discovery.

http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireball2/form.html


Alternatively I think you can still call the Omniplex Planetarium and report these things. Hope all of this helped.

[FritterGirl]

Wow! Thanks for that great info, especially about the coloring. I went to the website and entered what data I could based upon my experience. Pretty neat.

[SkyWestOKC]

I saw something similar about 7 months ago in east OK. Lasted about 9-10 seconds and shot in from the southeast and split up into about 7 or 8 fragments over the 9-10 seconds it was visible until it burned out at probably 10-12k feet above the ground.

[dismayed]

SkyWest, very often when you see a burning or fireworks-like explosion in relation to a meteor that often means that fragments have broken off and been ejected. Usually those fragments end up falling at a slower speed, which means often they survive reentry.

[ljbab728]

SkyWest, very often when you see a burning or fireworks-like explosion in relation to a meteor that often means that fragments have broken off and been ejected. Usually those fragments end up falling at a slower speed, which means often they survive reentry.

I don't mean to nitpick, dismayed. But I believe it would only be called reentry if the meteor had originated on Earth.

[dismayed]

If you didn't mean it you wouldn't do it, but yeah I agree reentry is a poor choice of words.