On Dec. 6th, 2008 at 1:06 a.m. MST, a meteor of stunning brightness lit up the skies over Colorado, USA. Astronomer Chris Peterson photographed the event using a dedicated all-sky meteor camera in the town of Guffey, near Colorado Springs:
"In seven years of operation, this is the brightest fireball
I've ever recorded, " says Peterson. "I estimate the terminal
explosion at magnitude -18, more than 100 times brighter than a
full Moon."
Fireballs this bright belong to a rare category of meteors called
superbolides.
They are caused by small asteroids measuring a few to 10 meters
in diameter and massing hundreds of metric tons. Superbolides trigger
seismic detectors on the ground, produce waves of infrasound that
can travel thousands of miles, and they are tracked by military
satellites scanning Earth for nuclear explosions. Recent examples
include the El
Paso fireball of 1997 and the Slovenian Superbolide of 2007.
Last night's fireball is on the low end of the superbolide scale.
Nevertheless, it was still a beauty and likely peppered the ground
with meteorites when it exploded. Sighting reports are welcomed;
they could help guide the tracking and recovery of debris.
LISTEN! 250 miles
south of the fireball, radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft of New Mexico
photographed the flash and recorded radio echoes from the superbolide's
ion trail. Click
here to listen.
US $69.95
