Fireball meteor in western Japan sky

Dear readers and followers,

Yesterday evening, on Monday November 3nd, people in western Japan have reported sightings of a sparkling light racing across the sky, as illustrated in the following picture. Experts say it was probably a "fireball" meteor, a piece of an asteroid that ignites upon entering Earth's atmosphere, and any surviving fragments mostly likely ended up in the sea. A remote controlled camera at Fukuoka airport recorded an object emitting a strong green light, while another camera at Hakata port showed a faint orange light.

Credit image: Japan Times

Last year, a fireball meteor has been seen in US. The +American Meteor Society indicated that they received 63 reports of a fireball over the state of Maryland and New Jersey during the night on October 14th 2013 around 8:25 pm

Credit image: +BBC News 

Source: +BBC News

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Alert meteors: Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

Dear readers and followers,

The Delta Aquarid meteor shower is peaking from yesterday night, July 28th into July 29th, and even if you can't catch the cosmic show in person, you can still see live views of the annual shower online.

The online Slooh Community Observatory will host a webcast featuring the Delta Aquarid meteor shower as seen from Arizona and the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa, weather permitting. Experts will also be on hand to discuss the celestial sight. You can watch the Delta Aquarid webcast here at Space.com, or you can check it out directly through +Slooh. The live show will begin at 10 p.m. EDT tonight (02: 00 July 29th GMT). Moreover, you can participate in the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #SloohShower. NASA will also host a meteor shower webcast, if weather allows, on July 29 starting at 9:30 p.m. EDT (0130 July 30 GMT). The space agency's Delta Aquarid live stream will feature views of the shower from NASA's Marshall Space flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. You can also watch through NASA directly.

Astronomers predict that the peak of the shower will produce about 16 meteors per hour, Slooh representatives said. While the Delta Aquarid shower usually isn't spectacular, this year it falls during a new moon, meaning the dim "shooting stars" should stand out against the dark night sky. Slooh is planning to use special equipment for the webcast to show as many meteors as possible.

Annual meteor showers are created when Earth passes through a field of debris left in a comet's wake. The particles sloughed off by the cosmic body burn up in the atmosphere, creating the shooting stars people see from dark places on the ground.

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Bright meteor over New Mexico on Saturday October 19th 2013

Curiosity confirms the Martian origin of some meteors on Earth

Dear followers,

After the discovery of of water on Mars, few weeks ago, the Curiosity rover is still performing this work. Actually, while the NASA was out due to the shutdown during 2 weekend, the +NASA 's rover analysed the Martian atmosphere. These analyses confirm that some meteorites that have dropped to Earth really are from the Red Planet.

A key new measurement of the inert gas argon in Mars' atmosphere by the laboratory on-board the rover, provides the most definitive proof yet of the origin of Mars meteorites while at the same time giving a way to rule out Martian origin of other meteorites.

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

The Curiosity measurements do not directly measure the current rate of atmospheric escape, but NASA's next mission to Mars, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), is designed to do so. This mission is being prepared at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a launch around November 18th 2013.

Sources: NASA

A piece of the meteor fallen in Russia in February 2013

Dear followers,

few months ago (February 2013), a large meteor fell in Russia induced an amazing fireball in the sky. Yesterday, the Russian authorities find a piece for this meteor in a lake. Actually, the meteor had created a 6-meter-wide hole in this frozen lake.

Source: AFP

Fireball from a meteor over Maryland and New Jersey, USA

Dear followers,

today, the +American Meteor Society indicates that they received 63 reports of a fireball over the state of Maryland and New Jersey during the night on October 14th 2013 around 8:25 pm

Sources: +American Meteor Society 

A preliminary trajectory plot shows the meteor entered over New Jersey and flew on a north east trajectory, ending somewhere in or near Lancaster County in Maryland.