Why does Russia seem to get so many bright meteors? Well at 6.6 million square miles it’s by far the largest country in the world plus, with dashboard-mounted cameras being so commonplace (partly to help combat insurance fraud) statistically it just makes sense that Russians would end up seeing more meteors, and then be able to share the experience with the rest of the world!
This is exactly what happened early this morning, April 19 (local time), when a bright fireball flashed in the skies over Murmansk, located on the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia near the border of Finland. Luckily not nearly as large or powerful as the Chelyabinsk meteor event from February 2013, no sound or air blast from this fireball has been reported and nobody was injured. Details on the object aren’t yet known… it could be a meteor (most likely) or it could be re-entering space debris. The video above, some of which was captured by Alexandr Nesterov from his dashcam, shows the object dramatically lighting up the early morning sky.
One Russian astronomer suggests this bolide may have been part of the debris that results in the Lyrid meteor shower, which peaks on April 22-23. (Source: NBC)
Source: RT.com
Is it common for meteor showers to produce such large bolides? I thought that these showers were just made up of dust particles.
Mostly they are, but there are larger fragments, depending on the sources of the individual showers. Lyrids are known for fireballs.
I have seen a meteor similar in scope to that on that lit up the sky brilliant green. It was an amazing sight. I’ve seen lots of meteors but nothing like this, it lit up the night sky.
I was going to work on a country road 45 minutes north west of London Ontario in the fall of 2005.
I looked in the papers, there was no report of it and i’ve mentioned it to lots of friends and no one else knew anything else about it. O wonder how common these events really are, over the oceans, up north…..