So far, no images or video have surfaced of the huge fireball that was reported in the skies over Ireland on February 3, 2010. The Daily Mail posted a video, but it appears to be one from a year ago, maybe earlier. They write that meteorite hunters are on the look-out for fallen space rocks in Ireland, and David Moore of Astronomy Ireland is quoted as saying that meteorites likely landed on Irish soil and not at sea, as many witnesses who saw it along the coast said it was traveling inland.
“This is a huge event,” Moore said, “There’s a good chance we may end up finding this one.”
Witnesses from around the country spotted the fireball around 6 pm local time, but so far not many images or videos have been posted online. The images The Daily Mail posted were not credited and appear to be screen shots from the video.
Moore said the meteor was traveling at a 100,000 miles per hour, or the equivalent of a small atomic bomb blast in the skies.
If any of our readers from Ireland saw the fireball and/or recorded video or images, send us an email.
Source: The Daily Mail
My head is still reeling from Mr. Crowell’s calculations (will this be on the test?) so all I can say is I’m rather disappointed in both the lack of any real visual documentation of the meteor and the posting of false video footage the day of the event. It’s sad that someone would do that for a laugh. Hopefully something credible will turn up soon.
It would be interesting to see the observations of the estimated trajectory plotted on a map. Given that this might be a cometary object (Thanks LC), getting at the meteorites ASAP to obtain fresh samples would be crucial? Hopefully, if anyone finds some pieces, they’d take care not to contaminate them!
So for those of you who might go foraging for stones, keep that in mind!
100,000 mph = 27.8 miles per second! Given Ireland’s dimensions, it would have to be a ‘bulls eye’ to have hit land… Any reports of sonic booms or thunder reported? Where?
I am wondering if 100.000miles an hour is realistic and how is this possible?
I would expect the escape velocity of Earth as more realistic or the orbital rotation speed of earth around the sun 30 km/s. So a head on collision would be 60 km/s if the object moved in the opposite direction of earth’s orbit.
Wow! 100,000 mph translates to about 44 km/sec. The Earth’s orbital velocity in heliocentric coordinates is 29.5km/sec, and escape velocity is sqrt{2} times that or 41.7km.sec. So the asteroid or meteroid was not coming in at a near comoving tangent with Earth’s orbit, for that would be nearly 86km/sec in heliocentric coordinates, and it could not be a part of the solar system. This body likely had a high eccentricity and reached the Earth at a near perpendicular to the Earth’s orbit. If I assume perpendicularity the resolvant vector between the Earth’s orbital velocity and the astreroid’s velocity is 44km/sec and this means the velocity of the asteroid in heliocentric coordinates was about 33km/sec. This is a lower bound, for if the orbit had some component of orbital velocity parallel to the Earth’s orbital velocity (and clearly it did) then the asteroid velocity in heliocentric coordinates was larger. This makes me suspect this was some cometary remnant.
LC
I saw two differant metoriods.Same day, Feb 3rd, but in Orlando,FL, 9;40pm est.was first one, was between 90 an 85 degree’s in the sky, going exactly north to south..They where over an hour apart,the second one exploded twice.it was going the same direction as the first ,in the same part of the sky,11pm est,,No sounds,Or smoke trail i could see.Wasn’t huge one’s but they where deafantly Visiable!!
I think as we learn more we’ll find that the 100,000 mph was just pulled from someone’s behind.
The video (if legitimate) really has the appearance of it being a slow re-entry … orange / red instead of white hot, puffy smoke.
The lack of confirming videos / pics is quite odd.
Yeah Surak I’d say David Moore pulled that out.