To Kukulkan

a few meteorites on her way across? Seems they have to be related somehow. The one in Russia a coincidence. But two? On the same day as the closest asteroid ever? What are the chances?

Over land s what is impressive.

What if, the one that passed us was really on a collision course and we detonated something near it to divert it causing it break apart and loose some of it's to Earth's gravity. Perhaps the news about it would have destabilized the worlds civilization and we were made to believe it passed us by and the effort to avert is was kept completely hidden.

I don't believe any of what I just said, lol, but I had fun thinking it up.

People tonight are on a roll...comedy club, DU

Thanks.

My sides hurt.

Dogs and Cats living together........MASS HYSTERIA!!!

DO NOT think about this guy.....

I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never, ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft.

We used to roast Stay Puft marshmallows....by the fire at Camp Wocanda............

of all places.

He was one of the judges for a alien contest. He apparently liked the red Martian look.

it may evolve genetic splicing and Vladimir Putin.

(/tin_hat)

One in Cuba

http://current.com/community/94051338_breaking-meteor-crash-this-time-in-cuba.htm?xid=RSSfeed

I'm sure that asteroid did not pass by us 'in a vacuum', so to speak. It probably brought some minor 'crumbs' along for the ride.

Only visible at night and fizzling across the sky instead of exploding.

and all of the experts are saying that is unusual and incredibly low.

When I was young, back in Ohio, I'd seen meteors streaking down during the day, probably because the area I'm from was flatter than a flitter and nothing but fields all around, so view was panoramic. Never ever saw one explode like that. I'm still fascinated by all of the videos those Russians managed to get of that thing!

Or is a reevaluation about to take shape? Russia, Cuba, San Fransisco, the asteroid... all between Wednesday and Tonight. A couple more and I think it's time to think a little more seriously about the possibilities.

Or we would have known about it by now.

I just hope we don't see any major hysteria developing over this, though.

No, not kidding.

But politically, we had better get our ars on a stick and put some of our NASA money on sky survey and deflection. So far, they and congress has taken a "there's no real danger" view on the serious nature of collisions.

And to tell you the truth, we probably would not know about it by now either because we didn't see it coming which is highly possible, even probable, or because we wouldn't be told (which of course is the tin hat part).

Hysteria is not a good idea, but being prepared is a good idea. It will happen sooner or later.

I have to edit this.....

NASA has not taken a "there is no real danger view" at all. They just have not been able to put up the cash for a project that is not popular with congress and industry.

So there's that I suppose. Still don't think this one poses any real threat; NASA may be underfunded, but I highly doubt we'd be totally blindsided: It's about as likely as any given person in the U.S. being struck by lightning this year; which is to say, extremely unlikely.

OTOH, I agree on this, though: it really wouldn't hurt to be prepared.

In order to track these things the data has to be openly shared so that the thousands of amateur astronomers around the globe can contribute their data. The Earth rotates so no one country could ever suppress the data. Suppressing it would make the whole system not work at all.

When the SETI institute once found a candidate signal from ET (it wasn't), the government never contacted them, but the NYTimes did.

So much for such conspiracy theories. And I know that the poster doesn't subscribe to them. I just felt obligated to chime in on why such speculations are nonsense.

There is no conspiracy theory about the fact that most meteors are never noticed through detection until they happen. My guess is it's because there isn't enough effort to do so. There are an estimated 250,000 objects in an orbit that cross the earth's plane that could be a hazard and only about 1900 are cataloged. NASA has been advised that they need 250 million dollar budget to do the job of detection, cataloging and to devise a plan for deflection, but only 20 million has been allocated.

Just for calculation sake, It would have been better if the meteors we have seen in the last days were related. If they are not related the scenario is slightly less encouraging.

Some of what I wrote was in jest, most was not. Some was tagged as tin hat or conspiracy for the fun of it others were not. But picking and choosing to undermine the reality of the need for more detection and deflection technology is not useful to anyone.

For simplicity, I think will discontinue making light statements for fun of it on this subject since there is a bent toward knee-jerk reaction to science these days with the stereotypical reaction of using conspiracy theory as a scapegoating mechanism. I guess it's time to make the message simple enough to be understood.

I did misunderstand I guess. I had a double take when you said "poster" as the OP is the poster and I figure I'm a commenter. Am I a poster as well? Gees, words can just get in the way sometimes. Sorry.

Oh dear. The hazards of online textual communications.

That's why I try not to be the first person to throw a chair, but try to be the first to apologize for my somewhat mangled posts.


Regards.

That's why we're getting them so close together.

A previous collision that broke up a larger chunk. We were rather close to the larger one and it would be expected that other bits would travel with it. That's probably more common than not. Pictures of some of the larger asteroids show large chunks and boulders held to them by gravity. It would only be logical that smaller asteroids would have more space bits hanging near it compared to larger asteroids that sweep them up and hold them.

The scientists I heard talk about it mentioned an amazing coincidence so I guess it's not an established theory yet.

I feel like all of these in the last couple of days were remnants of the larger one that passed at 17,000 miles out yesterday.

According to scientists, the Russian meteor approached earth in virtually the opposite direction of Apophis.

The direction it went was wrong. It should have gone south to north and it went (AFAIK) east to west.

I don't know about the Cuban or SF meteors, but there are many, many tons of stuff falling on Earth from space each day. Sightings will inevitably cluster once in a while. I suggest that this is one of those coincidental instances.

Plus, this may be selection bias. With 2012DA14 in the news, people may be looking to the sky more. So they are just seeing events which happen normally, but in context with 2012DA14 seems to correlate.

These things happen every day. People are just paying attention right now.

It's all coincidence with some selection bias thrown in for good measure.

Sid

Maybe they're MAD learning about the drones memo?

"Wanna see OUR drones, earthlings?

That photo shop is rather disturbing.

(It's the gays I tell ya)

I was sitting on my porch in Sebastopol, about 55 miles north of the Golden Gate, when I saw something flash in the sky. My first thought was a meteor, but then I thought it looked like a firework descending.

I was looking southwest at the time. It was a white downward streak that appeared to have a greenish head.

I didn't hear anything.

I didn't think anymore about it until I saw this thead. Weird.

A couple of years ago, this was on my cam.

http://www.cornflake.com/pub/fireball2.avi

It was a large fireball as seen in a reflection on our car's windshield. I think it was about 3 in the morning.

And that's what we're experiencing.

I highly doubt any of them are of any real danger, we've got the big ones mapped out (with the exception of possible asteroids coming from a sunward trajectory which we couldn't spot, but they'd have to be rouges).

Think about how far the earth travels per second around the sun. These events are very far apart in space.

We got nuttin to worry about

Certain materially-inclined DUers have given us "assurances": Russian meteorite was 'once a decade' event:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022379427

Remember this thread? A DU classic.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002128567

Sid

off the US Western coast, could generate a Tsunami.. I hope that doesn't happen, as it would be a nightmare...Keeps fingers crossed it doesn't hit here.

Anyone outdoors under a dark sky will see that phenomenon several times in a night.

a few months ago there was a meteor that landed outside Vallejo which had a sonic boom that was heard throughout the Bay Area (i know, i heard it!). but it made the news too.

these are unusual to see around here.

Those of us who spend a lot of time outside at night see a lot of them. Most people never see them because they're snugly holed up in their houses after dark. I've been into amateur astronomy since I was a kid, and still do astronomy demonstrations for local youth groups, so I'm outside a LOT at night. I probably see two or three good sized fireballs a month...and I'm just over the hill east of the Bay Area. Anything I can see, they can see.

On average, a few thousand fireballs hit the Earth each day (a fireball isn't just a meteor, but is a LARGE meteor with a magnitude greater than -4...bright enough to throw a shadow). The vast majority of these are never spotted by people because they hit over the oceans, or come down in the daytime when they're less noticeable. I've heard that the actual average for amateur astronomers is one fireball for every 20 hours of viewing time. If you spend a few hours a night outside staring at the sky, each night for at least a week, the odds say that you'll see at least one of these.

People are just paying more attention at the moment because of the big flyby and the one that came down over Russia. Everyone thinks this is something new, but it's really not.

The main factor is how dark your sky is. In lit-up cities, they're not very visible, but they enter the atmosphere above well-lit cities just as frequently as they do dark rural areas; they just can't be seen as well. The one seen in the video was against an open dark sky because of the wide road, and was of an ordinary magnitude, seen every night where the sky is dark.

Tonight I'll go sit in the hot tub out on the deck with my wife and we'll see 10-15 and at least 2 will last longer than that one did.

People need to get a grip. There are probably dozens every night that San Franciscans don't see because of their light pollution.

Although this may be relative to me, given I grew up in Chicago. But, you're right. I'm an amateur astronomer, and I see meteors, some quite bright, all the time in the Bay Area. Last week, around 2 am, there was a nice little trailing orange scorcher. Very pretty.

back from Boise. We saw one brighter and longer than most I've seen. It split 2 or 3 times, lasted over 5 seconds, and was a yellowish-green. It was so big in fact, I was sure there would be some kind of news about it. Nothing turned up no matter how many times I Googled it.

Good thing we were still far enough from Vegas so as not to be bothered by the light pollution.

If so, that was a comet that ended up near So. Lake Tahoe.

I was inside, as usual -- but San Jose has actually attempted to reduce its light pollution, to protect the famed Lick Observatory on nearby Mt. Hamilton. Our streetlights are yellow, not white, and point downward.

The evening of the Russian meteor explosion, I was listening to CNN and they broke in with CNN International...listening to that guy and his breaking news, one actually may have imagined an alien invasion was happening.

He was quite young.