Showing posts with label Japan Meteor News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan Meteor News. Show all posts

07 November 2009

Japan Meteor/Meteorite News- 日本ー北陸 大火球ー Large Green Fireball Over Sayama, Japan Area 6NOV09 7NOV09


Direction of termination point from Nerima point of observation. The fireball was seen traveling from WN to WNN (~310 degrees to ~335 degrees from magnetic North).
(c) 2009 Dirk Ross, Meteor/Meteorite News


UPDATE with several great videos and more information!
Thank you to Dr. Ohtsuka, Katsuhito and SonotaCo Network JAPAN !!!
The official name and time of the event:
2009年11月6日 20:28:59 北陸 大火球

SEE : http://sonotaco.jp/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2151


Japanese Newspaper Report (Japanese to English edited machine translation follows):
http://www.kitanippon.co.jp/contents/knpnews/20091107/27492.html

Shooting stars brighter than in Toyama Prefecture "fireball"
Kita Nippon Shimbun- North Japan Newspaper- reported November 7, 2009 9:00
Several observed a meteor fireball while emitting a brighter than usual flash at around 8:30 pm on the 6th of November; it was observed throughout the province. According to the Observatory, Toyama, it was a "fireball", a rare phenomenon called that because of the large mass of the meteorite.
According to the Observatory, the fireball was observed in the direction of the north. Was shining from two to three seconds, falling to the bottom-right. Divided into several individual pieces of the meteorite exploded in the middle with a white or yellow, and red emission.
Usually a meteorite enters the Earth's atmosphere, because of the state of the atmosphere it burns up in the heat of friction and is called a "shooting star".
The Massive "fireball" caused a fervor in a wide area during the time it took to burn out; unlike a shooting star, it gave a strong longer glow.
A male worker (48), an apartment dweller at Apartment 4, Toyama-shi, 布瀬 Machi Minami, saw the fireball from his home city of Toyama was "surprised to see the first (fireball(?))" and warmly told others. The observatory said there were numerous queries.

Large Fireball Over Sayama, Saitama-Tokyo, Japan Area 6NOV09
by Dirk Ross...Tokyo

I first reported it as a large fireball over Tokyo, but later refined to the area of Sayama, Saitama-Ken, Japan. I witnessed a bright fireball officially at 20:28 on Friday, 6NOV09 from a tenth floor apartment balcony in Nukui, Nerima-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
The fireball was seen at approximately 15-20 degrees above the horizon and traveling from WN to WNN (~310 degrees to ~335 degrees from magnetic North). When first spotted the fireball changed color from blue to red to green and entered dark flight at approximately 10-15 degrees above the horizon in the direction of Sayama, Saitama-Ken.
The duration of visible flight was about two seconds with a possible maximum of three seconds. No sound report was heard. The brightness was about the same as the moon.


UPDATE video and official info have now been provided:
http://sonotaco.jp/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2151


Thank you!

11 May 2009

Forty Thousand Meteor Origins Across the Sky


(click on image to enlarge)
Credit & Copyright: SonotaCo Network, Japan

Forty Thousand Meteor Origins Across the Sky
Explanation: Where do meteors come from? Visible meteors are typically sand-sized grains of ice and rock that once fragmented from comets. Many a meteor shower has been associated with a known comet, although some intriguing orphan showers do remain. Recently, a group of meteor enthusiasts created a network of over 100 video cameras placed at 25 well-separated locations across Japan. This unprecedented network recorded not only 240,000 optically bright meteors over two years, but almost 40,000 meteors seen by more than one station. These multiple-station events were particularly interesting because they enabled the observers to extrapolate meteor trajectories back into the Solar System. The resulting radiant map is shown above, with many well known meteor showers labelled by the first three letters of the home constellation. Besides known meteor showers, eleven new showers were identified by new radiants on the sky from which meteors appear to flow. The meteor sky is ever changing, and it may be possible that new shower radiants will appear in the future. Research like this could also potentially identify previously unknown comets or asteroids that might one day pass close to the Earth.