Telegraph.co.uk
UFO sightings could be explained by meteor showers and ball lightening, according to an Australian astropyhsicist. Dr Stephen Hughes has made a ...
Twin County News
The Geminid meteor shower is an annual meteor shower that is extremely regular in its timing and can potentially be visible for days in the December sky, ...
Hughes, Stephen W. (2010) Green fireballs and ball lightning. Royal Society of London. Proceedings A. Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. (In Press) This paper presents evidence of an apparent connection between ball lightning and a green fireball. On the evening of the 16th May 2006 at least three fireballs were seen by many people in the skies of Queensland, Australia. One of the fireballs was seen passing over the Great Divide about 120 km west of Brisbane, and soon after, a luminous green ball about 30 cm in diameter was seen rolling down the slope of the Great Divide. A detailed description given by a witness indicates that the phenomenon was probably a highly luminous form of ball lightning. An hypothesis presented in this paper is that the passage of the Queensland fireball meteor created an electrically conductive path between the ionosphere and ground, providing energy for the ball lightning phenomenon. A strong similarity is noted between the Queensland fireball and the Pasamonte fireball seen in New Mexico in 1933. Both meteors exhibit a twist in the tail that could be explained by hydrodynamic forces. The possibility that multiple sightings of fireballs across South East Queensland were produced owing to fragments from comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is discussed. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/38939/ |
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