Can anybody find a news story on this? I’ve heard about it on the radio this morning, but cannot find anything on the news sites about it. - To much war coverage. I guess the people who saw it though they were under attack. From what I’ve heard, the states were: Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Iowa.
Coverage from the Chicago NBC affiliate:
http://www.nbc5.com/news/2067595/detail.html
A chunk of what is assumed to be it was recovered from an area where a couple homes were damaged in the suburbs of Chicago, and on the morning news I saw footage of the sky that was coincidentally being filmed near an unrelated fire scene around midnight last night. They aren’t kidding when they say that “night turned into day” - the still photo in the linked article of the sky over the house is from the brightest moment of that film.
My husband (who majored in geology and is something of an astronomy buff) gave the guess that the chunks are just a small part of the meteorite, and the rest may be scattered over a wide area. I wonder what The Bad Astronomer might have to say on the subject.
Cool thanks!
Our local weatherman said to look for the "Satellite "flying around the earth last night.
Could that have been it?
I doubt it. A satellite looks (IIRC) like an untwinkling star in the sky. This was a bright blue flash seen in 4 different states around midnight, which lit up the sky like day around here at least, and which produced large rocks that damaged a couple homes in the area.
Scared the heck out of my daughter. She was doing homework and all of a sudden there was a flash of light at the front window. I thought it might have been lightning, or even a car or something driving by. Then we heard noise that started like thunder, but it went on too long, and wasn’t rumbly enough for thunder. I wondered if it might be gunfire, and then I thought it might be fireworks.
We didn’t find out until this morning that it hit somewhere in town.
I had a fifteen year old, 6-foot tall lap baby for a few minutes. I think I won’t let her watch the war news for a while.
You know, I wasn’t panicking about the war, or about SARS, or anything.
But now, the sky really is falling.
[sub]I need my blankie.[/sub]
Dear vanilla and others:
(slight hijack:)
Anyone who is interested in finding the manmade satellites that are “flying around” should check out www.heavens-above.com .
This site will give you sky maps calculated to your spot on the globe and the paths and times that the naked-eye satellites cross the sky. Too cool for words.
Try here for more info (link to space.com article).
I had a long, highly amusing reply typed out for this and the friggin’ hamster ate it. I lack the heart to try to recreate it.
Short version: It was visible from Missouri, as well. I was at work (emergency dispatch) when we got a call from Fox2 News St Louis asking about the flashes in the sky near the nuclear plant. A minute later, the nuclear plant called; they said it looked like a plane going down. While deputies were enroute to check the area, we got a teletype message from an agency further south, explaining what was going on and adding that it had been seen from Illinois to Arkansas. Other road officers, hearing the initial dispatch, radioed in that they had seen it, too.
I’m assuming that, in our area at least, the phenomena was pretty faint. If we had experienced the kind of bright lights and loud noises described in the linked articles, our 911 and non-emergency lines would have lit up like a Christmas tree.