The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 29FEB2016

Why Is Russia Pointing Nuclear Missiles at Asteroids?
Motley Fool
15, 2013, when a meteor exploded in the skies high above Chelyabinsk, ... for a last-minute launch to blast an asteroid before it turns into a meteor.

Why Did The Atomic Bomb-Like Meteor That Hit Atlantic Went Unnoticed?
Bitbag
A big meteor hit the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month. NASA has confirmed that on Feb. 6 at 2 pm, a huge meteor as powerful as the nuclear bomb ...

why didn't nasa catch this 2-story-wide meteor entering earth's atmosphere?
InvestmentWatch
WHY DIDN'T NASA CATCH THIS 2-STORY-WIDE METEOR ENTERING EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE? Submitted by IWB, on February 28th, 2016.

Giant meteor explosion over Earth with the power of the first atomic bomb
Blasting News
Although it's regarded as the most significant impact a meteor has insofar had with the Earth since the Chelyabinsk incident in Russia, this event went ...

If a meteor explodes over the Atlantic and no one sees it, did it really happen at all?
The Marshalltown
Everyone remembers the massive meteor explosion over the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. But the meteor that fell over the Atlantic ...

Un meteorito cinco veces más brillante que la Luna impacta contra España
Equilibrio Informativo
La madrugada del miércoles astrónomos de España registraron la caída de un meteorito en la región de Córdoba. Según consiga un comunicado del ...

March, a month for many minor meteor showers
New Jersey Herald
March has a lot of minor meteor showers but none are any great shakes, ... Remember, meteor showers are better viewed in the early-morning,?

Astro Corner: What's up in the March sky
Globalnews.ca
So we've decided to do a monthly look ahead where you can find out what interesting celestial events — eclipses, meteor showers, planetary ...

Meteor Activity Outlook for Feb 27-March 4, 2016
American Meteor Society
The sporadic rates are also near their annual minimum so there is not much to look forward to this month except for the evening fireballs that seem to ...

2016 The THIRD Year of "CERTAIN Uncertainty" ™ / Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 27FEB2016

Daytime fireball seen over Luxembourg, Saarland & Rheinland-Pfalz
The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News
Just Breaking- Ontario NJ VA DE Fireball Meteor 1820 EST 30JAN2016 ... ONT CT VT WV DE NY MD PA NJ Fireball Meteor 14FEB2... RJ, Brasil ...

Meteor hit Atlantic with 13000 ton TNT force: Detected at 19 miles above ocean
Examiner.com
The largest meteor since the 2013 event in Russia hit the earth this month, coming down in the Atlantic Ocean, reports NASA. They recently published ...

Atlantic meteor: Large meteor hits Earth with nuclear bomb force, some worried
Examiner.com
According to News Max this Friday, February 26, 2016, the power of the large fireball was roughly equivalent to the destructive level of the bomb used ...

Large meteor explodes off the coast of Brazil
Big News Network.com
WASHINGTON -- The largest space rock to penetrate Earth's atmosphere in three years exploded over the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month.

Meteor that Fell Over the Atlantic Ocean Was the Most Intense Explosion in 3 Years | The Weather ...
The Weather Channel
NASA announced last week that back at the beginning of February, a meteor exploded over the Atlantic Ocean. Turns out, it was one for the record ..

Atlantic Meteor Blast Big as a Hiroshima Bomb Not Noticed
Newsmax
A meteor exploded over the southern Atlantic Ocean with the power of the Hiroshima bomb in early February – and nobody noticed, according to the ...

Giant meteor hits Earth and nobody noticed?
Examiner.com
The Chelyabinsk meteor, which was undetected prior to its dramatic entrance into the Earth's atmosphere, exploded over Russia in 2013.

Atlantic meteor: Large meteor hits Earth with nuclear bomb force, some worried
MyInforms
The southern Atlantic Ocean was struck by a meteor recently with the force of a nuclear bomb, and yet many people did not even realize that it ...

Handykamera filmt Meteoriten
Yahoo Nachrichten Deutschland
Ein Mann will mit seiner Kamera eigentlich nur den Strand aufnehmen. Als er mit dem Gerät auf den Himmel schwenkt, bekommt er den Schock ... FAKE?

Thursday morning: Meteor spotted over Luxembourg & France
Luxemburger Wort - English Edition
Frederick R said: “I looked out of my office window while I was on a call and clearly saw a fireball with a tail light. What struck me was that it seemed ...

VIDEO: Fireball lights up skies over Spain
WPTV.com
The footage from the Calar Alto Observatory shows the fireball over the southern Spanish city of Cordoba. According to experts, thefireball was ...

A Beautiful Meteor Shower Could Be Evidence of a Dangerous New Comet
Popular Mechanics
On New Year's Eve, cameras in New Zealand captured a meteor shower that had never been seen before. Coming from the direction of the southern ...

Meteor Shower Points to 'Potentially Hazardous' Comet
Discovery News
While Earth can breathe easy for now, the SETI Institute and other astronomers are on the lookout for a “potentially hazardous” comet that may in the ...

A Beautiful Meteor Shower Could Be Evidence of a Dangerous New Comet
End Time Headlines
On New Year's Eve, cameras in New Zealand captured a meteor shower that had never been seen before. Coming from the direction of the southern ...

Meteor Shower Points to 'Potentially Hazardous' Comet
Portal to the Universe
Meteor Shower Points to 'Potentially Hazardous' Comet. 26 Feb 2016, 15:38 UTC Meteor Shower Points to 'Potentially Hazardous' Comet....

List of meteor showers in 2016
Tucson News Now
We have arguably the best views of the night sky in Arizona, which means you should mark down our annual meteor showers on your calendar.

2016 The THIRD Year of "CERTAIN Uncertainty" ™ / Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!

NASA report Fireball / Bolide over mid-Atlantic on Sunday 21-Feb-2016 @ 05:58:53Z

NASA report Fireball / Bolide over mid-Atlantic on Sunday 21-Feb-2016 @ 05:58:53Z
reported by meteordetective
NASA have updated their Fireball & Bolide webpage with an entry for 21-Feb.

The space-rock in question was reported at 36.5N,37.2W (1,033km WSW of Ponta Delgada), at an altitude of 32.0km.

The Calculated Total Impact Energy was just under 1 kiloton, with Total Radiated Energy of 36.9E10 Joules (369,000,000,000 Joules).

Contact: meteordetective AT gmail DOT com.

2016 The THIRD Year of "CERTAIN Uncertainty" ™ / Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!

The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 25FEB2016

Meteorite Hunters Find 6 Space Rocks from Florida Fireball
Space.com
Fries regularly keeps his eye on the American Meteor Society's (AMS) home page as well as social media, with the hope of hearing about a recent ...

A meteor that exploded over the Atlantic on Feb. 6 had more force than the Hiroshima bomb
Yahoo News
Earlier this month, folks detecting atmospheric explosions for the United States government noticed something a bit out of the ordinary off the coast of ...

SETI Warns Of Parent Body That Caused Recent Meteor Shower
silveristhenew
Researchers at the SETI Institute spotted something odd on New Year's Eve over New Zealand. A stream of meteor showers appeared out of nowhere ...

Fireball meteor exploded over the Atlantic earlier this month
Fox News
A fireball meteor shot across the sky over the Atlantic ocean earlier this month, according to NASA, which describes the fiery object as the largest since ...

Ancient Earth was pummelled with meteors 790000 years ago
Daily Mail
The event took place on February 6 at 14:00 UTC when a meteor exploded in the air 620 miles (1,000km) off the coast of Brazil. It released energy ...

Very bright meteor fireball seen over Spain, exhibiting several explosions
Signs of the Times
... than the full Moon and exhibited several explosions. This footage was recorded by the meteor observing station operated by the University of...

Is a rogue comet on a collision course with Earth?
Daily Mail
Astronomers at the SETI Institute in California and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, say the meteor shower appeared over New Zealand on ...

NASA Says A Fireball Crashed Into The Atlantic, But No One Noticed
MSN.com
According to a report from NASA, an exceptionally bright meteor likely exploded over the South Atlantic Ocean earlier this month.

A Meteor Blew Up Over the Atlantic Ocean 3 Weeks Ago Nearly Unnoticed
University Herald
Ron Baalke, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, first reported the meteor impact and noted it was the "largest since Cheylabinsk." But whereas the ...

Largest meteor since Chelyabinsk burns up over Atlantic Ocean
NEOShield-2
The biggest fireball since the Chelyabinsk event plunged through the atmosphere just off the Brazilian coast earlier this month, releasing energy ...

Giant meteor hits Earth. Why no one saw it.
Christian Science Monitor
The largest meteor to impact Earth since 2013 went unnoticed when it landed on Feb. 6, as tracking near-Earth objects is improving but still notoriously ...

Biggest fireball since Chelyabinsk streaks over Atlantic Ocean
CBC.ca
The largest fireball to streak through the Earth's atmosphere since the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013 was detected over the Southern Atlantic Ocean on ...

Meteor explodes in the atmosphere over Atlantic, But Nobody Noticed
Canada News
So why isn't YouTube flooded with videos of the meteor? Because the event happened so far out over the ocean it's likely no one saw it, about 620 ...

Thursday morning: Meteor spotted over Luxembourg & France
Luxemburger Wort - English Edition
If you thought you spotted an meteor above Luxembourg on Thursday morning, you probably did. The French Meteor Observation Network confirmed ...

Meteor explodes off the coast of Brazil
UPI.com
The largest meteoroid to pierce Earth's atmosphere in three years exploded earlier this month over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil, NASA ...

Meteor Explosion Over Atlantic Ocean
Headlines News
The Chelyabinsk Meteor, one of the largest meteor impacts on Earth, in terms of size and energy occurred on 15.

Meteor Strikes in Australia | Real or Fake?
MSN.com
While this guy was cruising along the beach, a "meteor" came crashing down to Earth making a bright flash and a loud boom. I'm sure most of the ...

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Josep Maria Trigo Rodríguez
February 25 at 7:00pm
EL METEORITO ARDÓN: Hace algo más de un año publicábamos con mi doctorando Carles Eduard Moyano Cambero este artículo divulgativo sobre la curiosa aventura de una condrita ordinaria de poco más de 5 gramos vista caer en frente de Rosa González Pérez en 1931. Para grata sorpresa de todos, fue preservada intacta por esa niña de 11 años durante 83 años. Quede nuestro trabajo de caracterización y nombrado internacional del meteorito como homenaje a su persona (D.E.P.) y a su familia, todo un ejemplo de humildad y buen hacer por su legado desinteresado a la ciencia: http://www.spmn.uji.es/ESP/articulo/Ardon_Astro.pdf


2016 The THIRD Year of "CERTAIN Uncertainty" ™ / Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!

"Fireball '2nd only to Chelyabinsk meteor' explodes unseen over Atlantic" - REDUX

"Fireball '2nd only to Chelyabinsk meteor' explodes unseen over Atlantic" - REDUX
reported by meteordetective
Reporting carefully and comprehensively on a meteor event which occurred 17 days ago, with publicly available data which was seen 3 days ago but, thus far, had not been brought to the attention of the wider public audience.

Small excerpt from the RT article:

"The largest meteor since the one that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 burned up over the open ocean some 1,000 kilometers from the Brazilian coast on February 6, NASA reports. An extraterrestrial body allegedly the size of a large living room, about 5 to 7 meters across, released energy equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT, which is 40 times less than the Chelyabinsk phenomenon.

The object entered the atmosphere before exploding at approximately 30km above the Atlantic. It couldn`t be observed from the ground as it fell too far away from any populated area unlike the Chelyabinsk meteor, which hit the city with over 1 million dwellers, damaging nearly 3,000 building and causing multiple injuries."

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Reference / Need-To-Know

1. NASA Fireballs web-page
2. NASA Chelyabinsk meteor tracking article
3. Wikpedia article on the "Little Boy" type of Atomic Bomb
4. NASA Sentry / "Risk" Table

Commentary / Opinion:

From the data which NASA decided to publish on their "Fireballs" page, this event involved a relatively small chunk of space rock - however, the physics transforms a piece of space rock in to a potentially destructive 'space-bomb' of sorts...but let's put this incident in context.

Some, like the UK Mirror, are asking why NASA did not produce a major news-release, blog-post or even Tweet about it on the official NASA Twitter account?  It is the author's opinion that their main reason for not doing so is simple; They do not wish to 'scare the chickens' or even confuse them with the technical details.

If you've observed NASA and their 'data practices' for any length of time, you might be forgiven for thinking that they have a 'conservative' policy in this respect. To be fair to NASA, and other government agencies, too, the wider public are, more often than not, unable, uninterested or lacking in the technical knowledge, background or 'space knowledge' and/or scientific 'aptitude'...to have NASA giving them the occasional fright by way of a bite from the 'Space Rock Reality Burger'.

Sometimes 'they' simply don't want the public to know...although the public is aware of this long-standing, well-documented and prolific behaviour. Still, this is often the case and this blog post is not an entry point - in to the discussion about 'right to know', classified projects/documents/incidents etc.

Mr Plait, in his blog post article about the 'Atlantic' fireball, may have committed a minor 'sin' against NASA - by writing about a one-line table-entry on a relatively obscure NASA page, which had the potential to be transformed in to a headline article.  His blog-post has since been picked-up by countless 'news' agencies. Many of them have, arguably, sensationalised this event and have introduced words like "bomb" and "Hiroshima" to their headlines.  NASA's way of 'announcing' this event seems more appropriate and discrete...don't you think, or not??

For those 'in the know' and for those capable of viewing / translating 'dry' science data in to something meaningful, there was no need to 'go public' (although the data was publicly available) with this event. The public, at large, can easily be unsettled or even potentially frightened by what's out there (in the world as a whole) and by introducing, without context/background, a subject which is unfamiliar to them.

There is little, if any, purpose in causing an informational stampede or fear-mongering at large. More harm can sometimes be caused by 'going public' with information...and this remains true...even when it comes to space-rocks.

Yes, there was a small meteor which had substantial (potential) for destruction, but our atmosphere shielded us from this particular episode of doom and handled this small meteoroid without fuss.

There are much larger asteroids out there - along with Comets, and an almost incomprehensible number of planets and stars. (Allegedly, Charlie the Unicorn is out there, somewhere, too).

The reality is that Earth's atmosphere is tested by the occasional asteroid or, much more frequently, the much smaller meteoroids. Some make it down, through the atmosphere, to the surface, they strike the ground (astronomers apparently call it an "impact" when a meteor/meteoroid hits the atmosphere??), and become meteorites.

It's a numbers 'game' of probability - in the same way that winning the lottery is also a numbers game. Chance or probability favours, very strongly, that there will be a large number (you'd need to find and analyse this data for yourself) of space-rocks which do not pose a threat - versus a handful which occasionally penetrate our atmosphere and have the correct composition, size, velocities, trajectory and geographical location to present any form of threat to our planet or the life upon it.

Again, the chances are small of even seeing such a thing - however The Lunar Meteorite Hunter blog is a popular website which facilitates and encourages people to both report their meteor sightings and view other people's reports - from around the world. 

Sometimes (very occasionally) things are seen which are not reported or published - usually from a geopolitical/military secrecy perspective. It is appropriate to be conservative and responsible most, if not all, of the time. This policy/practice also deals with, and censors, the many hoaxes which are, unfortunately, played on the public and is successful most of the time in this respect.

So, getting back to the 'South Atlantic Fireball of February 2016'...

Yes, there was a small meteor which exploded high in the atmosphere with considerable force. NASA reported it, quietly, and then the 'newspapers' got hold of it. Enough said.

Please address any comments and/or questions, to meteordetective@gmail.com. If you'd like your comment posted/included in any further updates - please state your preference, along with your preference for anonymity (or not) and send them to the e-mail address above.

Thanks for reading.

(The right to publish/not publish is retained, as you would expect from any reasonable individual).

2016 The THIRD Year of "CERTAIN Uncertainty" ™ / Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!