Skydiver Captures The First Ever Footage Of A Falling Meteorite After It Has Stopped Burning

Meteorite Narrowly Misses Norwegian Skydiver -- The Telegraph

A skydiver in Norway captures the first ever footage of a falling meteorite after it has stopped burning

A Norwegian man narrowly avoided being hit by a meteorite while skydiving and has captured the first ever video footage of a meteorite travelling through the air after its flame has gone out.

Anders Helstrup, who belongs to the Oslo Parachute Club said "I got the feeling that there was something, but I didn't register what was happening,"

"When we stopped the film, we could clearly see something that looked like a stone. At first it crossed my mind that it had been packed into a parachute, but it's simply too big for that."

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My Comment: It is there for an instance .... and then it is gone. Wow.

Daylight Fireball Streaks Over Nevada and California

Daylight Fireball Streaks Over Nevada and California -- Discovery News

When reports about a meteor make headline news in Los Angeles, it's time to pay attention. In fact, anything that isn't associated with a high-speed car chase or the latest celebrity DUI is usually worth paying attention to (take it from me, it doesn't happen very often). But tonight, local news stations are reporting excited eyewitness accounts of a daytime meteor that ripped through the skies above Nevada and California on Sunday morning.

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Skywatchers Set For Meteor Show

From The BBC:

Stargazers are preparing for a sky show as the annual Lyrids meteor shower gets underway on Wednesday.

The shower is named after the constellation Lyra, from which the meteors appear to originate.

The meteor shower peaks early on Thursday 22 April (GMT), when 10-20 meteors per hour are expected to be visible under favourable conditions.

Scientists say the best time to observe the meteor shower is during the dark hours before dawn.

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Space Rock Contains Organic Molecular Feast

Photo: The Murchison meteorite came down in Australia in 1969

From The BBC:

Scientists say they have confirmed that a meteorite that crashed into earth 40 years ago contains millions of different organic compounds.

It is thought the Murchison meteorite could be even older than the Sun.

"Having this information means you can tell what was happening during the birth of the Solar System," said lead researcher Dr Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin.

The results of the meteorite study are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Giant Meteorites Slammed Earth Around A.D. 500?

An asteroid hurtles toward Earth in an artist's rendering. Illustration by Detlev van Ravenswaay, Astrofoto, Peter Arnold Images, Photolibrary

From National Review:

Pieces of a giant asteroid or comet that broke apart over Earth may have crashed off Australia about 1,500 years ago, says a scientist who has found evidence of the possible impact craters.

Satellite measurements of the Gulf of Carpentaria (see map) revealed tiny changes in sea level that are signs of impact craters on the seabed below, according to new research by marine geophysicist Dallas Abbott.

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Geminid Meteor Shower 2009: Where To Watch, What To Bring

From L.A. Times:

Sky-watchers, get ready for another late-night adventure. The Geminid meteor shower is to be at its peak tonight and into the wee hours of Monday morning. Though not as popular as the Perseids, these meteors generally put on a great show when they appear in our skies annually in December.

When you spot the Geminids, which emanate from the constellation Gemini (hence, their name), you will be observing debris from an extinct comet by the name of 3200 Phaethon. “It is, basically, the rocky skeleton of a comet that lost its ice after too many close encounters with the sun,” writes Tony Phillips in a NASA blog.

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Intense Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Sunday

The annual Geminid meteor shower lights up the sky over the 1600-year old fire temple of Niasar in Iran in a December 14, 2008 photograph. Photograph by Oshin Zakarian, TWAN

From National Geographic:

Late Sunday night is the peak of the year's most prolific annual cosmic fireworks show—the Geminid meteor shower (Geminids picture).

The meteor shower has been growing in intensity in recent decades and should be an even better holiday treat than usual this year, since it's falling in a nearly moonless week.

Coming fast on the heels of its more famous cousin the Leonid meteor shower—which peaked less than a month ago—the Geminid show should feature as many as 140 shooting stars per hour between Sunday evening and Monday morning.

The Geminids are slow meteors that create beautiful long arcs across the sky—many lasting a second or two.

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Geminid Meteor Shower Set To Light Up The Sky With Spectacular Display

Photo: The hidden fires of the Flame Nebula: meteor showers will be spectacular this weekend

From Times Online:

Wrap up warm and look at the night sky this weekend for the most spectacular meteor shower of the year — although you will need to brave some cold temperatures hovering around freezing.

The Geminid meteor shower appears every year about this time and is our best shooting star display, with more than 100 meteors appearing each hour. This year’s spectacle is especially good because it is close to a new moon so there is no moonlight to interfere with the view.

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NASA Scientists Say Martian Meteorite May Have Brought Life to Earth

Allen Hills Meteorite Thar be life? NASA

From Popular Science:

New analytical data supposedly backs the case for Martian life having once existed.

Martians may have already landed on Earth, at least in ancient microbial form. The same NASA team that discovered the controversial Allen Hills meteorite has shared new data that points to a biological origin for structures within the Martian rock, Spaceflight Now reports. NASA headquarters plans to officially address the new findings within days.

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Leonid Meteor Showers Tonight

The Leonid meteor shower streaks over Joshua Tree
during a spectacular display in 2001. (Newscom)

Leonid Meteor Shower Times: When You Should Look Skyward -- Christian Science Monitor

In 2009, the Leonid meteor shower will strike between 3:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Eastern time.

The Leonid meteor shower is back in town Tuesday morning. Every November, Earth gets a spritz of meteor light in the night sky. While Asia will get the best show this year, early birds in North America can enjoy a few dozen Leonid meteors per hour.

Thinking of getting up early? Americans, set your clocks to 3:30 a.m. East Coast time. The shower will run from then until about 5:30 a.m. However, no matter where you live, you may luck out and catch a stray meteor anytime between 1 a.m. and dawn.

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2009 Leonid Meteor Shower: "Strong Outburst" Expected

Leonid meteors streak across the sky over Joshua Tree National Park in California on November 18, 2001. The horizontal streaks are stars and planets caught moving in the long-exposure photograph. During the 2009 Leonid meteor shower, sky-watchers—depending on where they are—may see anywhere from 30 to 300 shooting stars an hour, experts say. Photograph by Reed Saxon, AP

From National Geographic:

During the 2009 Leonid meteor shower, you may see anywhere from 30 to 300 shooting stars an hour, depending on whether you're in the right place to see the showy peak on November 17, experts predict.

With the highest number of meteors streaking across the skies around 4:45 p.m. ET, the Leonids peak will be effectively invisible for viewers in North America and Europe.

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Fireball Picture: Meteor Explodes Over The Netherlands

From National Geographic:

October 15, 2009—When amateur photographer Robert Mikaelyan went out to snap an old Dutch sugar factory on Tuesday, he captured a rare treat: a huge exploding fireball in the sky.

Hundreds of people in the Netherlands and Germany reported seeing the fireball streak across the twilight skies around 7 p.m. local time on October 13.

Mikaelyan managed to capture several shots of the fireball as it swung low over the northern city of Groningen and began to break apart into smaller chunks.

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2009 Orionid Meteor Shower Peak Begins

Halley's comet streaks through the twilight sky on January 9, 1986, in an image from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The annual Orionids meteor shower, created by debris left behind from Halley's comet, will peak on October 21, 2009. Photograph courtesy NOAO/AP

From National Geographic:

Earth is currently plowing through space debris left behind by a visitor that last swung by during the Reagan Administration.

Spawned by Halley's comet, which last buzzed the planet in 1986, the tiny space rocks are the seeds of the annual Orionid meteor shower.

At its peak before sunrise Wednesday morning, the Orionids shower should produce 20 to 25 meteors an hour—a "relatively decent show," according to astronomer Anita Cochran, of the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory.

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Space Rock Yields Carbon Bounty

From The BBC:

Formic acid, a molecule implicated in the origins of life, has been found at record levels on a meteorite that fell into a Canadian lake in 2000.

Cold temperatures on Tagish Lake prevented the volatile chemical from dissipating quickly.

An analysis showed four times more formic acid in the fragments than has been recorded on previous meteorites.

The researchers told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that the formic acid was extraterrestrial.

Formic acid is one of a group of compounds dubbed "organics", because they are rich in carbon.

"We are lucky that the meteorite was untouched by humans hands, avoiding contamination by organic compounds that we have on our fingers," said Dr Christopher Herd, the curator of the University of Alberta's meteorite collection.

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