fireball meteor Archives - Argyll Free Press

If you’re in touch with the NASA newsfeed, you may have recently read about the baffling event regarding the fireball that hit the Atlantic Ocean without anyone noticing. The report read a fair amount of scary sounding facts that only become even more frightening to think about once you realize that mankind was particularly lucky without even realizing it.

The event in question seems to have taken place on February 6^th at 1:55 PM UTC; a rather quiet Saturday for anyone on the east coast of the United States and South America for sure. It would appear that at the same time that individuals were peacefully having their lunches, a meteor with roughly the same explosive power as a nuclear bomb descended from space, was set on fire by its travel through the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded right over the Atlantic Ocean.

Luckily, this occurred above the ocean and very far away from any sort of land, preventing the event from becoming catastrophic in any way for human settlements. Not to mention that thanks to the fact that it exploded before any collision, it did not end up affecting ocean currents or risking tidal waves.

Even so, scientists say that the fireball occurrence recorded on February 6^th this year was hardly worrying even if it had exploded above a populated area. Astronomer Phil Plait reminded us of the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russian territory in 2013. The Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated to have had the explosive power of 500,000 tons of TNT, while the one that dropped over the Atlantic Ocean only had the same potential as 13,000 tons of TNT.

Scientists say that had it exploded over a city such as New York, it would have surely rattled windows and scare the bejesus out of anyone who was there to see it leave a scorched trail in the sky before exploding, but not much else.

Plait also added that individuals are hardly aware of just how exposed the planet really is. The scientist stated that on average, about 100 tons of meteor debris fall onto the Earth on a daily basis. The reason behind that is the fact that most pieces of debris end up disintegrating during their fall through the atmosphere, reaching 10 to 100 kilometers per second.

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It’s hardly news that multiple fireball sightings in northeast United States have become more than just rare occurrences. The latest of the sightings was actually caught on camera in the sky above Maryland, Virginia, in the District of Columbia by a driver – Alexander Salvador – via his car’s dashboard camera. He was driving in Falls Churs at the time of occurrence.

The recording was made at 6:17 PM and it clearly depicts a second-long footage of a particularly bright object passing through the atmosphere and seemingly ablaze for a very short time, before disappearing. The witnesses described it as being incredibly bright but immediately disintegrating into fragments and disappearing nearly as soon as it popped in their vision. Salvador described it as unnerving and startling as it seemed close to where he was when he spotted it.

The term ‘fireball’ is used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to describe a particularly bright meteor; normally, this happens when a strange object is literally set ablaze by passing through the atmosphere at immense speeds, creating a trail of fire due to the friction.

This is hardly the first time a fireball sighting is reported to the American Meteor Society, however. According to logs recorded by the website, there have been hundreds of fireball and meteor sightings in north east United States as of late, with another documented event of this sort being caught on a camera in Ohio as well.

There is, however, a fair amount of uncertainty regarding the nature of the object that was spotted this last Saturday in Maryland, Virginia. According to some scientists’ calculations, had that been a meteor, it should have fallen somewhere in south-eastern Canada. Yet, no reports of any strange object have been reported in either the US nor Canada. Neither has there been any confirmation of what exactly the spotted object was.

Judging by previous experiences of this nature, it may have very well been of human construction. In December last year, another mysterious streak of light was spotted grazing the night sky at immense speeds, leading people to believe it was a fireball or shooting star. However, upon close analysis and documentation, it turned out to be nothing more than a Russian SL-4 rocket booster that had been launched a mere two days earlier and was accidentally caught on camera when it reentered the planet’s atmosphere.

Similarly, other occurrences have turned out to be unarmed missile test flights or other system evaluation tests run by the military.

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The Fireball That Hit the Atlantic Ocean Without Anyone Noticing

Multiple Fireball Sightings in Northeast United States

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