ladajo wrote:... I did not get a chance to hit up the asteroid guys. I did however spend some time with SSN.. .
dont worry, it wont really make any difference: just when we all die you will be under the mistaken believe you were hit by 'space junk, whilst we will all know it was a bloody greate meteorite (except for one person who will be blaming the aliens).
moral: 'if you ever get the chance, 'hit up the asteroid guys''.
BTW, I am curious if anyone has seen a meteor in real life. Not shooting star meteors, but honest to goodness fireball crashing to the ground ones.
I had the pleasure of seeing a fireball a few years back. I was sitting out back of my house by myself in the early evening and there it was, a smoke trail coming down at about 20 degrees from vertical, moving way faster than anything I have ever seen in the night sky. My mind caught up and was drawn to the flaming tip. It was an honest to goodness freaking meteor! So cool. The whole thing lasted about 3 or 4 seconds before disappearing behind neighboring houses. I tried to estimate how far away it was based on how the trail dissipated, but truthfully, I had no idea. Might have been a few miles away. May have been 50. I don't really know.
What amazed me about the whole deal was how big everything looked. Big fireball, big trail, everything was big. All from a little rock that may never have reached land. Really, really cool.
I was visiting Calgary in Aug 2009 and encouraged my wife and my freinds I was visiting to go outside to spend a while watching the Perseids. It was a bright show that year but one lump appeared that was a large glowing bright mint green blob that zoomed right overhead all the way over the horizon. If that sucker didn't touch down somewhere then I'd be surprised.
Reminds me of the one caught on film, again in Canada, in 2008.
That was amazing.
I wasn't aware of this video. Thanks for posting it.
there is a cable show here in the states called Meteorite Men that has many such views. It is a FUN show. Almost makes me want to quit my job and... naaa.
Yeah - spectacular, eh? The thing I saw looked much the same sort of size as the glowing missile in that video, but I did not see a bright flash, it went way behind us, behind houses and over the horizon.
Maybe there is some reason Alberta gets more than its fair share of meteorites!?
chrismb wrote:Yeah - spectacular, eh? The thing I saw looked much the same sort of size as the glowing missile in that video, but I did not see a bright flash, it went way behind us, behind houses and over the horizon.
Maybe there is some reason Alberta gets more than its fair share of meteorites!?
the Perseids come in mid summer from the constellation Perseus at about +50 degrees declination. Basically, Alberta (and that whole band of latitude) is buck-shot central.
ladajo wrote:... I did not get a chance to hit up the asteroid guys. I did however spend some time with SSN.. .
dont worry, it wont really make any difference: just when we all die you will be under the mistaken believe you were hit by 'space junk, whilst we will all know it was a bloody greate meteorite (except for one person who will be blaming the aliens).
moral: 'if you ever get the chance, 'hit up the asteroid guys''.
Well, for what it is worth, the Lincoln Labs asteroid dudes have a scare the pants off you presentation they do. One of the really frightening parts is the derth of ability we(humanity) have to detect and track. We are MUCH better a track than detect, but if you don't know it is there, ya canna track it.
I will see if I can get a copy of it.
I will tell you in my <weak> defense that the SSN stuff I spent the better part of the day doing was cutting edge and very cool.
The Perseids is a personal favorite. I was driving away from our viewing spot looking in the "wrong" direction and saw the most amazing green meteor which every one else in our family missed. Lovely watching it break up.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
