Wow. Fast.
From my deck just now, I saw a meteor, shooting star, ufo, whatever, cross the visible sky in about, oh, one second. It was astonishing. I look forward to reading or hearing about it. It was moving roughly east to west. I have no idea how high it was, but I see jets flying overhead all the time from where I was standing and this thing's transit across the visible sky had to be at least ten times as fast as any of those jets ever moved. I didn't see much flame or smoke behind it, so that suggests, what...? That it was way high? If so, then it was really moving fast.
Okay, that was fun. Thanks Mother Nature. I hope Pennsylvania and/or Ohio are all right. If this thing landed anywhere, my guess is it would really have to hurt. Or, maybe it was just a tiny thing. Who knows? Guess the news will tell me...
Probably a smallish earth-grazing meteor. You don't describe it as a "fireball", so I'll guess it was just the normal bowling ball sized type. We're not the middle of any major showers right now, but I recall one time during the Leonids a few years back when I looked up and caught a huge, flaming blob breaking up into hundreds of pieces that streaked across the sky in a few seconds (something like five or ten, objectively). Looked like a really big piece of space junk breaking up. Or an airliner coming apart in an explosion.
I guess it was much bigger than I had thought, and much higher, and so it went more or less unremarked -- it and all its flaming pieces just wandered off into space again when they left he atmosphere, somewhere out over the western Pacific. The only mention was "some spectacular fireworks" -- which applied in general to the shower, and not just my fireball. I suspect very few other people saw yours at all; when I saw mine, it was a well-popularized shower, and millions of people were wandering around with their heads tilted back.
Posted by: Bill Tozier | March 11, 2005 at 07:57 AM
Yeah, I think "bowling ball" sized seems about right. I haven't seen any mention of it so I guess it was just me and my little meteor sharing a Private Moment. Probably I found it more impressive than this sort of thing is normally taken to be because I just don't see that many of them from inside the city.
The one you describe reminds me of that Super 8 home movie you sometimes see of that big one breaking up over, um, Western Canada(?) back in, um, the seventies(?). It's really impressive. I'd love to see one of those one time. I envy you.
Posted by: Mike the Corpuscle | March 11, 2005 at 08:12 AM
Well, I'm just checking in to say Ohio seems okay. At least, as I look out the window.
Posted by: Maureen McHugh | March 11, 2005 at 08:26 AM
Okay, just as long as you're sure Ohio hasn't been knocked loose and is floating free somewhere around L1. But I guess you'd probably notice something like that.
Posted by: Mike the Corpuscle | March 11, 2005 at 08:34 AM