Monster Geminid Meteor Fireball over Mojave Desert - Credit: Wally Pacholka (AstroPics.com, TWAN)

Many more great pictures capturing meteors of one of the greatest annual meteor shower are available in the Meteorwatch Gallery.

Bright fireball in Ursa Major with Aurora Borealis and Mars (middle right edge) - Credit: Bjørnar G. Hansen

In addition to capturing a bright Geminid fireball, Bjørnar also managed to fit Aurora Borealis and Mars (middle right edge) into a single shot.

Although the predicted Geminid peak has passed and the activity will be dropping in the next 24-48 hours, it may be worth spending just one more night outside, as some say that fireballs tend to appear at the end of meteor showers.

For more information about the Geminid meteor shower follow #MeteorWatch, @NewburyAS, @ksastro on twitter. For the latest photos and images, see the Meteorwatch Gallery (and follow @MeteorWatchPix).

Bolide streaking across the sky over Utah as seen from the security cameras at the Willard L. Eccles Observatory on Frisco Peak

Numerous reports of a bright fireball that illuminated parts of the Utah sky on Wednesday at around 07:07 GMT are appearing around the Internet. A video from outside security cameras at the University of Utah’s Milford observatory shows a blinding flash of light.

Utah’s NASA and Solar System Ambassador Patrick Wiggins said that, from his observatory near Stansbury Park, the break up of the meteor occurred at about 240 to 250 degrees azimuth which puts it just north of southwest. He also heard the sound of an explosion that would put the breakup of the bolide about 100 km in that direction placing it high above Granite Peak in the west desert.

Utah scientists said later on Wednesday that there was a chance that the meteor was associated with the annual Leonid meteor shower.

Fireball Meteor Over Groningen captured around 17:00UTC on Tuesday Netherlands - Source: Robert Mikaelyan

Update 3: Koen Miskotte estimated the meteor’s brightness between -8 and -12.  According to his report the red orange fireball broke up in 5/6 pieces each one with a magnitude of -3 to -5. There are also reports of a sonic boom and a rumbling sound and shaking windows.

Update 2: Pictures of the smoke trail left by the bolide at dusk have appeared in a forum.

Update 1: According to the EXIF data of the original meteor photo, it was taken at 16:58:24 UTC between Assen and Groningen.

People in the Netherlands and Germany are reporting an extremely bright fireball seen around 19.00 CEST (17:00 UTC), traveling more or less south-north. Daniel Fisher of the Nuremberg Astronomical Association posted a photo of the meteor Daniel Fischer twittered links to a report posted on a mailing-list run by the Nuremberg Astronomical Association as well as to a a photo of the meteor:

A bright fireball seen over the Netherlands and Germany on October 13, 2009 at 16:58:24 UTC - Source: Jan de Vries

Theo Jurriens from the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute of University of Groningen, and KNMI – the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, confirmed about one hundred reports received from the public. The meteor has been seen to burst into three pieces eventually.

Bolide smoke trail over the Dutch sky

Astronomy Ireland chairman David Moore said:

So far, reports have been registered by residents in west Cork, Kerry, Cavan and as far north as Donegal, thus suggesting that this spectacular event may have been witnessed by people all over the country.

The group is currently attempting to determine possible locations where meteorite fragments could be found. If any parts of the space rock are located, they will be the second meteorite fragments recovered in Ireland since 1865 (a meteorite crashed in Ireland at around 22:10 UTC on November 28, 1999, and its remnants have been found in the county of Carlow).

“We were watching the game and then all of a sudden something caught our eyes.”
“We looked up really quick and there was this big, bright fireball… it seemed like it was right on top of us like you almost had to duck it seemed so low.”

There are also reports of a loud explosion, thus the object must have reached low enough altitudes where the air thickens enough that sound can propagate through it.

We thought someone set off dynamite – the boom shook the house.

This sighting adds to the series of bright meteors seen around the world recently. The number of similar reports in the last year should really be attributed to the rise of social media rather than increasing number of meteor activity. About 3,000 meteors are set ablaze in our atmosphere every day.

The space around us is filled with interplanetary debris. As of August 30, 2009, 6292 Near-Earth Objects (NEO) have been discovered. 1062 of these NEOs are asteroids with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer or larger. Also, 145 of these NEOs have been classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).

Only yesterday, at 11:46:36 UTC the asteroid labeled as 2009 QC35, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on August 29, passed the Earth at a distance of about 0.0075 AU which roughly represents 2.9 Lunar Distances (LD). The separation of 1,113,500 km is considered quite close by space standards.

Orbit Diagram of 2009 QC35 - Source: NASA JPL

2009 QC35 has an estimated diameter of 23-52m. It is not one of the largest among Apollo asteroids (Earth-crossing NEOs with semi-major axis greater than 1.0 AU and perihelion distance less than 1.017 AU), nevertheless a collision with our planet would cause a great damage and leave a long lasting scar.

The Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona created approximately 49,000 years ago by a nickel-iron meteorite with the diameter of about 50 meters

Orbit Diagram of 2009 FP - Source: NASA JPL

This Near Earth Object (NEO) was discovered at 05:46 UT on March 29 by Mount Lemmon Survey (MLS) in Arizona, one of the three facilities of the Catalina Sky Survey. The probability of impacting the Earth is only 1 in 133,000. The asteroid has a diameter of approximately 10 meters and poses no risk to anyone as it would certainly break up in the Earth’s atmosphere and rain down only a few small fragments (meteorites).

Astronomers have been conducting surveys to locate objects whose orbits bring them to close proximity with the Earth for decades. However, automatization techniques first introduced by LINEAR program greatly increased the numbers of discovered asteroid in the last ten year. LINEAR alone is responsible for the discovery of more than 220,000 new objects out of which more than 2,000 classify and NEO’s (NEO is a Solar System object with perihelion distance less than 1.3 AU).

NEO Chart - Source: NASA JPL

It might seem that Earth’s neighborhood got filled fill space junk suddenly as news of fireballs have filled internet blogs and even TV news over the past 6 months. Fortunately, it is far more likely that general public and media simply pay more attention to these events. Additionally, astronomers are becoming better at detecting even the smallest objects days before they pass the Perigee of their orbits. Bad Astronomer offers a great explanation for this “puzzling” phenomenon:

I think it’s a mix of coincidence — there may be a few more than usual, but it’s not like these things have published schedules; sometimes there are more and sometimes fewer — together with people being more aware of them because they’ve been in the news lately. It’s like buying a car and suddenly seeing it everywhere when you drive. We notice what we’re primed to notice.

Below is a short list of notable objects that crossed path with Earth in the past six month:

On October 6, 2008 Richard A. Kowalski of the Catalina Sky Survey discovered a meteoroid, later labeled as  2008 TC3, that entered Earth’s atmosphere only 20 hours later, at 02:46 UT on October 7, 2008 over Sudan. There was great excitement in NEO community as it was the first time a prediction was issued about an object entering Earth’s atmosphere. Consequent observations led to discovery of several fragments of the original piece of rock that measured about 5 meters in diameter. Here is an animation of what an observer on the asteroid would see in the last hours before the atmospheric entry.

A very bright fireball lit up the skies in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada around 22:30 UT on Thursday, November 20, 2008.

Only two months later this footage from Sweden captures a spectacular meteor that entered Earth’s atmosphere on January 17, 2009.

It is quite rare to see a meteor during daylight as most meteors are too faint to be noticed. One of the exceptions is the great fireball of 1972 which was the first Earth-grazing object ever observed.

Earth-grazing fireballs are caused by a meteoroid that enters the atmosphere but overcomes the Earth’s gravity and exists back into outer space. Only four grazers have been scientifically observed.

A very bright daylight meteor was seen over Texas on February 15, 2009. Only a few days later, two astronomers claimed to have found meteorite debris.

On March 2, 2008 at 13:45UT we had the first close miss of March when Asteroid 2009 DD45, discovered only a few days before, reached the perigee distance of 72,000 km.

Orbit Diagram of 2009 DD45 - Source: NASA JPL

Two weeks later, on March 18 at 12:17 UT another interplanetary rock 15 meters across, 2009 FH, flew by reaching minimal geocentric distance of 79,000 km. Both of these objects passed us at only twice the altitude of geostationary satellites.

Orbit Diagram of 2009 FH - Source: NASA JPL

If this feels like the Universe is out there to get us … well … that’s right. We know with 100% certainty that it will eventually succeed.