In 2006 in june between 13-17 at around 11.45pm - 0100am i watched a star in NewZealand explode. i saw every detail of the colours it turned what angle the atomic ring around it was how many bits of debery came off that ring and the aftermath that remained after the Explosive showsettled down,this was in real time in our galaxy, did anyone see it,i cant be the only one out of seven billion eyes ,i left out what the after math looked like for confirmation of someone who saw it
That would have been news. Is this your first disclosure?
While there are lots of “optical transients” or temporary celestial phenomena recorded by observers and sky survey programs, I haven’t heard of or found any record of any naked-eye-visible event in June 2006 in the southern hemisphere.
There are other sky phenomena that can look to the casual observer like some kind of stellar burst or explosion, so while I don’t question that you probably saw something, it doesn’t sound very likely that it was really an exploding star.
To answer your question, no it’s not very likely that you would have been the only person to notice a naked-eye-visible nova-type event.
Wouldn’t a super nova be visible for more than a night and leave a nebula of some sort behind.
I don’t believe you saw a star in New Zealand explode.
That would have left a mark.
You might have seen a meteor explode, upon entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
I have it on pretty good authority that there aren’t any stars in New Zealand.
Not to sound rude, but the OP’s writing makes me wonder if he was old enough to use a computer in 2006.
More seriously, maybe a meteor or what **Kimstu **said, and while there was a supernova in 2006, it was only visible with telescopes (the last naked eye visible supernova appears to have been in 1987, also visible in the Southern Hemisphere) and they last far too long in any case (visible for at least some days to months).
I saw Supernova 1987a. But it was visible for months, and you don’t see it exploding as such. You just see a smudge of light in the sky - no detectable movement.
Stars are really big - when they explode the distances involved make it seem really, really slow. The OP did not see a star explode.
My first thought was that the OP saw a meteor end on. There is no chance it was a star, if the debris was visible in a ring expanding in real time as the OP saw, if it were a star it would be expanding at a very large multiple of the speed of light - which is simply not possible. Novae and supernovae create an expanding gas cloud that we can track over the period of hundreds of years with large telescopes. Something that you see expanding with the naked eye in real time is happening very close. Tens to hundreds of miles away at most - so in the atmosphere.
I like that theory.
Perspective can be funny when it comes to shooting stars. Someone once said they saw a shooting star shoot up in the sky rather than down. I tried, in vain, to explain that it was simply coming toward him and passing over his head, before burning up. I don’t know why that’s so hard to grasp, but then I also was shocked when I read in Michener’s “Alaska” where the tribe was enjoying the first sunrise of the spring and it rose in the EAST! (doh) (I bet Michener wroteSouth but some idiot editor “fixed” it.)
You mean in Alaska, it really seems to rise in the south? Does it set in the north, too?
This very thing happened in Russia today.
The farther north you go, the farther south the sun rises and sets. The closer to the winter solstice, the farther south the sun rises and sets. At the cusp, it’s due south.
Imagine we’re well north of the Arctic Circle, it’s been winter and dark all day long, since well before the winter solstice. Today is the first day where the sun will actually appear above the equator, just for a short time. It’ll appear just before noon (local time). It’ll peek over the horizon and then slip back below it.
So where will that happen – in the east? Rise up in the east and then set again in the east? Nope, it’ll be due south.
Every day, the sun will rise earlier and farther east, and it’ll set later and farther south.
I guess I take these things for granted, being a stargazer and having traveled a bit. The sky in the southern hemisphere was half familiar and half totally strange. The biggest surprise (which shouldn’t have been but caught me offguard) was my first time camping in the tropics. In Michigan, where I grew up, when it starts to get dark in the summer we have a couple hours before it’s really dark. In the tropics you’re lucky to get 15 minutes of twilight! So much for setting up a tent and searching for firewood.
In late winter or early spring, it could certainly seem to rise in the south.
That was some pretty cool footage.
I swear I (and a friend) saw something similar in the evening in 1999 or 2000 or possibly 2001. We were driving along the highway in Austria or Germany (I think the latter) in the evening, when all of a sudden there was a rather visible streak of light that flashed by overhead and quickly across our field of vision. It wasn’t a long-lasting continuous streak like in the video, but a quick streak with a long tail that lasted for about 1-2 seconds or so (if that), before disappearing. I swear it seemed low enough that after the initial burst of light, we could both see smoky contrails, so it looked like it was maybe 500-1000 feet up.
Now, did we see a meteorite or something else? (It actually didn’t look to me like it made groundfall, but just burnt up right in front of us). I remember thinking that it was the brightest and coolest shooting star I’d ever seen (but it wasn’t blinding or anything), but then was puzzled when I saw what appeared to be smoke where the streak of light was a second ago.
Actually, it looks like it must have been the Neuschwanstein meteorite. I’m off by a year (it was 2002), but the other details match.
OK, that’s freaky. A few days ago, one of my professors appeared on the evening news to talk about the asteroid that’s passing by today, and made a joke about the Tunguska incident that rather fell flat (something about “But who cares? It was Siberia.”). I can’t wait to see his reaction to this one.
I didn’t scroll down far enough, but apparently there’s a whole mess of videos of the incident, not just the one on top that I initially saw. That Russian culture of dash cams has provided me much internet entertainment.
The arc of the Sun will lie very, very low in the sky, almost on the southern horizon. But there will still be an arc, however small, and the Sun will still technically rise in the east and set in the west.