Meteor seen in Portugal
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https://news.sky.com/story/blue-fireball-flashes-in-night-sk...
Some beautiful images:
https://x.com/esaoperations/status/1792106330267799685
https://x.com/travolax/status/1792004429173916132
https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/1cvtfuw/b...
That's (~45 km/s) pretty close to the Sun's escape velocity from Earth (~42 km/s). I wonder if there's a chance it's interstellar.
It would be interesting to know its velocity components. Hopefully NASA will have and report that data.
If we used the Earth's orbital speed (~30 km/s) and launched from Earth in that continued direction we would only need ~12 km/s additional velocity.
I’ll mention that the population in my region appears to have stayed primed to watch astronomical phenomena since the eclipse. The beach I usually go to for viewing was busier the night of the auroras than some beach days in the summer.
Not a daylight-visible supernova, but a naked-eye night-visible nova is expected to happen later this year: https://www.space.com/new-star-night-sky-nova-explosion-rare
Usually it means a change in the ruling dynasty of China. Or so they say...
> We’re in the Xi dynasty
I don't think there's ever been a Chinese dynasty named after its ruling family. Nothing could be more gauche.
Emperors can be named after the dynasty, but that only happens after they're dead, and doesn't replace their personal name.
Immediate second though: so grateful for our atmosphere
It was cloudy over me, so no bolide - I only saw slowly rising to 100% saturation brightness outside, during pitch-black night. (sonic boom a couple of minutes later).
I gave it a 20% chance it was a nuke from Putin :D
Second thought was, if we see this in a movie it might come across as your average cgi scene (without any epic music or slow shots) and doesn't standout much.
But now that I know it is real, all these normal videos (compared to movie CGI) somehow makes them better, special and makes me want to be there which doesn't happen with a movie scene.
It was astounding. It became day for a few seconds and then it broke off into a half dozen pieces or so. It left an incandescent trail behind.
It looked incredibly close. I had the feeling we were going to hear it coming down nearby in a few seconds, but it ended up in the Atlantic Ocean (actually not that far from us since we were by the ocean, but far enough).
So glad we were having drinks outside and I wasn't grabbing anything in the house!
I have seen enough meteors in video to recognise one in real life, but I wonder if for a split second the fight-flight instinct kicks in before reason prevails.
This is a town that happened to have its biggest celebration of the year last night. It's called Festas do Senhor de Matosinhos.
The meteor made an appearance 15 minutes before midnight. The big fireworks were to go off at midnight. We all thought it was the weirdest firework we'd ever seen and only later realized it was a meteor.
It was truly huge. And lit the ground blue.
The really interesting part of this is that the festival is to celebrate a miracle in the town wherein a vision of Jesus appeared a long time ago.
I am not religious. But wow. Quite a coincidence.
Posting under a fresh account for location privacy, of course.
Maybe this sounds unbelievable but here is the program of the festival where you can see that the fireworks happen:
https://www.leca-palmeira.com/senhor-de-matosinhos-4/
And here's the wiki about the reason for the festival:
During a recent volcano eruption someone was convinced that the rain would help stop the lava. I can't forget that. Oh, and the prophetic, blessings, I knew it, climate change, etc.
Scientifically, this phenomenon is called confirmation bias. The bigger your belief, the more biased your conclusion. "Faith" is simply how religious people call their confirmation bias.
Maybe if I reorganize my flow to spend more hours outside in the evenings I can fool statistics into showing me a second one.
num_lifetime_meteor_sightings = tan(pi * n/48)
Try not to handle any freshly fallen meteorites with your bare hands! Oils and microbes from your skin will slowly degrade the surface of a meteorite, dulling the fusion crust, contaminating the meteorite, and promoting rust. The contamination aspect is especially important for carbonaceous meteorites and other uncommon types.
What’s the largest smallest object we won’t be able to see that can be devastating?