About this episode
The episode discusses recent fireball meteors that exploded over multiple locations and their implications.
Recently there were four fireball meteors, brighter than the planet Venus, which exploded over Germany, France, Ohio, and Arizona within the space of only 10 hours. A total of 1320 individuals were treated to light shows and reported their observations to the American Meteor Society. The one which exploded over Arizona was probably several feet in diameter and entered the Earth's atmosphere over Flagstaff. This event was observed in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. It was recorded by numerous electronic security and dashboard cameras and was visible for from 3 to 7 seconds. This meteor also produced a booming sound which was reported by about a dozen different observers. The fireball was last seen over Happy Jack, Arizona and is likely to have produced meteorite fragments which are scattered along Interstate 17 somewhere in the rugged country between Phoenix and Flagstaff. There are likely to be on the order of 1,000 fireball events over the Earth every day. Most of them occur over the oceans or during the day and pass unobserved by humans. During the first 10 months of 2017 the most energetic fireball event occurred when a meteoroid entered the…
People in this episode
Host: Albert D. Grauer
Topics covered
- fireballs
- meteors
- astronomy
- space events
- meteorite fragments
Keywords
- fireball
- meteor
- American Meteor Society
- Flagstaff
- light show
- meteorite
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: American Meteor Society
Places: Germany, France, Ohio, Arizona, Flagstaff, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado
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