{"id":40,"date":"2015-03-16T17:41:13","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T17:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/?p=40"},"modified":"2015-03-16T17:43:50","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T17:43:50","slug":"fireball-surprises-european-stargazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/meteors\/fireball-surprises-european-stargazers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fireball surprises European stargazers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday night saw a massive fireball over southern Germany, Switzerland, and eastern France.\u00a0 Reports put the time of the event at around 19:48 GMT.\u00a0 Witnesses from Germany, Switzerland, France and Austria reported the event to the International Meteor Organization<\/a> (IMO), and more than 175 eyewitness reports<\/a> have been collected so far (see image below).\u00a0 Robin from Tuttlingen said: “The fireball was so bright that it illuminated the sky and landscape around me to twilight brightness levels.”<\/p>\n

\"Fireball<\/a>

Fireball reports from the March 15th 2015 fireball, submitted through the IMO’s “Report a fireball” form at http:\/\/fireballs.imo.net\/<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Twenty witnesses near Zurich reported a rumbling boom sound shortly after the fireball appeared.\u00a0 One witness outside of Zurich described the boom by saying, “About two minutes after the fireball there was a considerably strong sonic boom. After the sonic boom rumble was heard for at least twenty seconds.”\u00a0 These types of booms associated with meteors indicate the fireball penetrated deep into the Earth’s atmosphere.\u00a0 An estimated trajectory, computed from the witness reports, shows the fireball was travelling from north to south, starting about 25 km south of Stuttgart and ending approximately 20 km east of Zurich.\u00a0 The event was also captured by several dashcams and other automated cameras.\u00a0 One camera, operated by Thomas Tuchan, caught the path of the fireball<\/a> across the sky:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The fireball caught on an all-sky camera<\/p><\/div>\n

Fireballs are exceptionally bright events which happen when a meteoroid passes through the atmosphere.\u00a0 Stand outside on any clear night for more than a few minutes, and you will see a meteor somewhere in the sky.\u00a0 Meteors are caused by small pieces of rock, generally less than a millimetre in size.\u00a0 They range in brightness from too faint to be seen with the naked eye, right up to brighter than the full moon.\u00a0 The majority of meteors are at the faint end of this scale, while fireball events like this one are at the extreme upper end of this range.\u00a0 Most eyewitness reports so far put the brightness of Sunday’s fireball greater than that of the full Moon (magnitude -13).\u00a0 You can see all of the reports for this event at: http:\/\/fireballs.imo.net\/imo_view\/event\/2015\/657<\/a><\/p>\n

Almost all small meteoroids disintegrate during their passage through the atmosphere.\u00a0 But sometimes, very bright fireball events can result in a meteorite fall, where the meteoroid (or parts of it, in the case of an explosion) reaches the ground.\u00a0 If this happens, reports from people who saw the event are vital in determining the likely location of the debris.<\/p>\n

Whether a fall occurs or not, the details of fireball events like this can only be determined from combining the information from many eyewitness reports.\u00a0 If you saw this fireball you can help researchers by reporting what you saw in as much detail as possible.\u00a0 The best way to do this is though the IMO’s fireball report form<\/a>.\u00a0 The form is simple and guides you easily through the process of reporting your sighting, assuming no specialist knowledge, and is now available in more than 25 languages (including German and French).<\/p>\n

For further information on meteors and other related events, and advice on how to observe and report them, visit the IMO website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Notes for editors<\/p>\n

The International Meteor Organisation<\/a> (IMO) was founded in 1988 and today has a membership of over 250, consisting of both amateur and professional astronomers.\u00a0 The IMO was created in response to an ever growing need for international cooperation between amateur astronomers working on meteors.\u00a0 By collecting meteor observations from observers around the world using a variety of different techniques, the IMO ensures the comprehensive study of meteor showers and their relation to comets and interplanetary dust.\u00a0 Each year the IMO organises an international conference to facilitate the exchange of ideas and help progress the field of meteor research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday night saw a massive fireball over southern Germany, Switzerland, and eastern France.\u00a0 Reports put the time of the event at around 19:48 GMT.\u00a0 Witnesses from Germany, Switzerland, France and Austria reported the event to the International Meteor Organization (IMO), and more than 175 eyewitness reports have been collected so far (see image below).\u00a0 Robin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[12,13,11],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meteors","tag-fireball","tag-germany","tag-great-balls-of-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rigel.org.uk\/astromeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}