Items tagged with meteor
The iconic Halley’s Comet will be leaving a treasure trove of shooting stars for stargazers to catch this weekend. The meteor shower, also known as the Orionids, peaks during mid-October each year, and is considered to be one of the most beautiful meteor showers of the year.
Whether a comet with an orbit of every...
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Thousands of people in the US Northwest took to social media to share video of a bright fireball streaking across the night sky late Monday (similar to the one that scorched North Carolina's skies earlier this month). Many described the fireball as appearing green, while some added it had a yellow tail.
Reports of...
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Researchers have come across some evidence suggesting Earth had a ring system around 466 million years ago, which may have been a contributor to the global cooling event known as the Hirnantian Icehouse. The hypothesis comes from plate tectonic reconstructions for the Ordovician period, a period of unusually intense...
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NASA Meteor Watch confirmed what many across nearly a dozen states saw and heard in the early morning hours of August 30 was indeed a meteor. The space agency added the meteor event began about 45 miles above Piney Flats, Tennessee, and moved south and eastward at a breakneck speed of 31,300 miles per hour.
The...
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The night skies will light up this week with not just one meteor shower, but two. The Delta Aquariids, known for its bright and fast meteors, and the Alpha Capricornids, known for producing slower, more colorful shooting stars, will peak simultaneously on Tuesday, July 30.
Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons...
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While last month may have brought April showers, May brings what could be the strongest meteor shower this century. The shooting stars will originate from the famous Halley’s Comet, which is in retrograde orbit with the sun.
Halley’s Comet orbits the sun in the opposite direction of the Earth, completing an orbit...
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As the search for life outside of the confines of Earth continues, a group of astrobiologists has suggested checking meteors as an Uber for aliens. The new research explores a model of life spreading between planetary systems via panspermia and terraformation.
There are currently over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets...
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The Quadrantid meteor shower will soon be lighting up the night sky for those with a clear view. This dazzling display of shooting stars will appear to radiate from the Big Dipper asterism, located in the constellation Ursa Major.
While the Quadrantids are active from mid-November through mid-January each year, it...
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The Taurid meteor shower kicks off the month of November for skywatchers. At its peak, the Taurid meteor shower is expected to showcase about ten meteors per hour, with the Leonids meteor shower following shortly after with an estimated ten to fifteen per hour.
The Taurid meteors consist of two streams, the South...
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NASA has confirmed that a bright fireball spotted over the mid-Atlantic states on September 3, 2023, was indeed a meteor. The streaking shooting star was seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses and captured on video by publicly accessible and personal cameras.
A few folks in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States...
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The Perseid meteor shower has already begun, but the peak of the spectacle in the night sky is yet to come. The annual meteor shower started lighting up the night sky on July 17, 2023 and is expected to last until around August 24, 2023.
Every summer the Perseid meteor shower sprinkles the sky with streaks of...
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A lady from a village in Alsace in east France shared her story about being rudely interrupted as she sipped on her coffee when something hit her on the chest, what she believes was a small meteorite fragment.. The lady says the small space rock first hit her roof before bouncing off and smacking into her...
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The bright light from a meteor streaking across the night sky caught the attention of onlookers across north Queensland, before crashing into the ground creating a thundering boom. The spectacle was caught by various cameras throughout the area and shared on social media.
People from Cairns on the east coast of...
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Imagine coming home and realizing a 4-inch by 6-inch rock had fallen from the sky and penetrated the roof and ceiling of your home. That is exactly what one New Jersey family experienced, and the mysterious rock is believed to be a meteorite from the Eta Aquarids meteor shower which peaked this past weekend.
The...
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Residents in Kyiv were left baffled after a bright object was observed in the sky around 22:00 local time. The object was at first thought to be a NASA satellite reentering Earth's atmosphere, but the space agency responded that the satellite in question was still in orbit at the time of the sighting.
The Ukrainian...
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A $25,000 reward is being put out for whoever finds a chunk of a meteor that lit up the sky over Maine around noon last Saturday. Finding it could prove quite challenging, though.
A rare event woke the town of Calais, Maine on Saturday April 8 at around 11:56 a.m. Residents were treated a bright red fireball...
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Researchers have found RNA nucleobases in samples retrieved from asteroid Ryugu. The samples were collected by the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which harvested the samples in 2019 before returning to Earth in 2020.
An international team led by Associate Professor Yasuhiro Oba at Hokkaido University...
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Satellite data suggests that Earth could be at a higher risk of a giant asteroid impact than previously thought. The data may indicate that scientists have been misreading traces of past asteroid strikes that have occurred in the past million years, according to James Garvin, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Chief...
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Residents in California reported strange and mysterious lights streaking across the night sky on Friday night, leaving many questioning their origin. It turns out the explanation for the streaking orbs seen across California was fairly simple.
Hundreds of residents in California were able to capture images and...
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An international team of researchers is calling a stunning fireball from the most distant region of the Solar System a game changer. The meteor that was spotted over Alberta, Canada last year is challenging the currently favored Solar System formation models.
The Oort Cloud is a group of celestial bodies that begin...
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A team of researchers at the University of Alberta has found two minerals never before seen on Earth in a slice of a 15-ton meteorite. The slice came from the ninth-largest meteorite ever found.
Skywatchers love watching falling stars light up the night sky. Most burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere and never...
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The Draconids meteor shower is expected to peak this weekend. While not considered a major meteor shower, this particular one has been known to produce hyperactivity called meteor storms.
Meteor showers can provide a delightful showcase of falling stars dashing across the night sky. The upcoming meteor shower...
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