Meteor/Meteorite News 25NOV2010

Mojave Rattlesnake, Crotalus scutulatus, seen in Nevada and found in the deserts of the southwestern United States and central Mexico.. Use caution while hunting for meteorites!  (c) Count Guido Diero 2010

Readers write:
Guest117 (guest):Just saw a very colorful fireball in the sky @ 5:45 am in Northern California.
Guest975 (guest):fireball over the sky of Romania seen in Sibiu at 20:57.tonight! any info about it?

December meteor shower, lunar eclipse, Jupiter views
Arizona Republic
One of the strongest and most reliable annual meteor showers takes place in mid-December. Astronomers expect the peak of the Geminid meteor shower to occur ...


Northern Rockies Skies for December
University of Wyoming News
The Geminid meteor showers, peaking on Dec. 13-14, could provide midnight watchers with one of the most spectacular showers this season, with up to 100 ...


Meteorite fragments go on display at UW-Madison's geology museum
Wisconsin State Journal
Among the pieces of the Mifflin Meteorite on display at the UW-Madison Geology Museum is this oriented nose-cone. It gained its shape from its entry into ...

FIREBALLS web site online

Bill Cooke- NASA
After resolving some technical issues and mucho battles with the bureaucracy, I have finally managed to establish a public web presence which displays observations made by the NASA all sky cameras. It should update automatically by 9 AM Central time each day. Simply click on the date, and it will display the information for the events - if any - recorded by the system for that UT day. November 15 is an anomaly, displaying results for multiple days (a result of the manual debugging process). ...The url is http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov 

A rough description of the available information is at http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/helpme.html

NASA Spacecraft Burns for Another Comet Flyby
PASADENA, Calif. -- Eighty-six days out from its appointment with a comet, NASA's Stardust spacecraft fired its thrusters to help refine its flight path. The Stardust-NExT mission will fly past comet Tempel 1 next Valentine's Day (Feb. 14, 2011). It will perform NASA's second 
comet flyby within four months. "One comet down, one to go," said Tim Larson, project manager for both the Stardust-NExT mission and the EPOXI mission -- which successfully flew past comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4. ...


Nov 23, 2010 - Possible Andromedid fireball ?
Thomas Ashcraft- Nov 23, 2010
I captured a fireball last evening and am wondering if it might be an Andromedid? I made a movie and inserted a sky map with constellations. Perhaps this meteor may be too fast to be an AND ?
2 MB .mp4 video with sound:
http://www.heliotown.com/FBs20101123_042547ut_and_Ashcraft.mp4

Life found in the deepest layers of Earth's Crust

The “life is persistent” argument is often used to bolster the idea that life exists elsewhere in the universe. While that remains to be seen, the notion certainly keeps proving true here on the home planet. Scientists have found life thriving in near superheated ocean vents, in inhospitable parts of Antarctica, and in the depths of subterranean oil reservoirs. Now, a drilling expedition to the deepest layer of the Earth’s crust has found life there as well, and the evidence suggests there could be more life even deeper. ...
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-11/seafloor-drilling-expedition-finds-life-deepest-layer-earths-crust

Meteor falling video on YouTube 43 sec meteor falling in Salem VA on nov. 19 2010 about 10:30 pm never seen one with my own eyes like this one looks like it cane ... (unsure if a meteor or not)