Taurid Meteor Lighting up the Sky

“Fireball Sightings on the Rise
By Tony Phillips
Science.NASA.gov
posted: November 3, 2005
3:15 pm ET


November 3, 2005: "I thought some wise guy was shining a spotlight at me," says Josh Bowers of New Germany, Pennsylvania. "Then I realized what it was: a fireball in the southern sky. I was doing some backyard astronomy around 9 p.m. on Halloween (Oct. 31, 2005), and this meteor was so bright it made me lose my night vision.”

Bowers wasn't the only one who saw the fireball. Lots of people were outdoors Trick or Treating. They saw what Bowers saw ... and more. Before the night was over, reports of meteors "brighter than a full moon" were streaming in from coast to coast.

Astronomers have taken to calling these the "Halloween fireballs." But there's more to it than Halloween. The display has been going on for days.

On Oct. 30th, for example, Bill Plaskon of Jonesport, Maine, was "observing Mars through a 10-inch telescope at 10:04 p.m. EST when a brilliant fireball lit up the sky and left a short corkscrew-like smoke trail that lasted about 1 minute."

On Oct 28th, Lance Taylor of Edmonton, Alberta, woke up early to go fishing with five friends. At about 6 a.m. they "noticed a nice fireball. Then 20 minutes later there was another," he says

On Nov. 2nd in the Netherlands, "The sky lit up very bright," reports Koen Miskotte. "In the corner of my eye I saw a fireball about as bright [as a crescent moon]."

And so on….

What's happening? "People are probably seeing the Taurid meteor shower," says meteor expert David Asher of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland.

Every year in late October and early November, he explains, Earth passes through a river of space dust associated with Comet Encke. Tiny grains hit our atmosphere at 65,000 mph. At that speed, even a tiny smidgen of dust makes a vivid streak of light--a meteor--when it disintegrates. Because these meteors shoot out of the constellation Taurus, they're called Taurids.

Most years the shower is weak, producing no more than five rather dim meteors every hour. But occasionally, the Taurids put on quite a show. Fireballs streak across the sky, ruining night vision and interrupting fishing trips.

Asher thinks 2005 could be such a year.

According to Asher, the fireballs come from a swarm of particles bigger than the usual dust grains. "They're about the size of pebbles or small stones," he says. (It may seem unbelievable that a pebble can produce a fireball as bright as the Moon, but remember, these things hit the atmosphere at very high speed.) The rocky swarm moves within the greater Taurid dust stream, sometimes hitting Earth, sometimes not.

"In the early 1990s, when Victor Clube was supervising my PhD work on Taurids," recalls Asher, "we came up with this model of a swarm within the Taurid stream to explain enhanced numbers of bright Taurid meteors being observed in particular years." They listed "swarm years" in a 1993 paper in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society and predicted an encounter in 2005.

It seems to be happening.

When should you look? You might see a fireball flitting across the sky any time Taurus is above the horizon. At this time of year, the Bull rises in the east at sunset. The odds of seeing a bright meteor improve as the constellation climbs higher. By midnight, Taurus is nearly overhead, so that is a particularly good time.

According to the International Meteor Organization, the Taurid shower peaks between Nov. 5th and Nov. 12th. "Earth takes a week or two to traverse the swarm," notes Asher. "This comparatively long duration means you don't get spectacular outbursts like a Leonid meteor storm." It's more of a slow drizzle--"maybe one every few hours," says Asher.

A drizzle of fireballs, however, is nothing to sneeze at. So keep an eye on the sky this month for Taurids”

“Anyone else been seeing some of these? Many reports in NC has me headed to the river to camp and maybe catch one myself.”

“ENS said he saw one on saturday night. But we all thought he was drunk and silly.
Mabey he's not crazy after all.”

“cool - I would love to see one”

“I was running the other night just after dark and saw a very bright meteor slash across the sky. It was pretty impressive. Maybe thats what I saw?”

“Maybe God is farting?





hahhahahahahhahaha”

“must have had chili this week, whatever it is, its got him all lit up lol”

“Hope ya'll see a few, I'll be looking.”

“there was a thing on the DC news about this. Of course living in the city with the light pollution I don't have a snowball's chance of seeing anything in the sky. Can just about make out the moon on most nights.”

“Taurid meteors await in the darkness.
cheers.

I will be out in the wilds this weekend, so I hope to get some good sky.


go trek
www.mytrekkingpolesdotcom”

“cute. i put in the dot instead of a . and it still came through as a link but went nowhere.
here is the real link
www.mytrekkingpoles.com”

“hope to see some this weekend”

“I was driving home late tonight from a wedding, a 2+ hour drive down I-5, and I saw about 8 HUGE meteors during this time, not even looking for them. They were very bright and large. I was wondering if there was some big meteor shower going on but I didn't recall hearing about any. Now I come across this and it explains it. TT keeps me plugged in.”

“It happened on Oct. 31 2005 at approximately 10:30 pm MST. I was
camped at the bottom of the Canyon at BAC and in my tent at the time.
I was lying on my back watching the meteors through the top screening
of my tent waiting for sleep to take over. Then something I had never
seen before startled me. A very brilliant white sphere shaped object
moving fast like a meteor almost directly overhead. It was heading
east and was many times larger than a meteor (15% of the size of a
full moon). I had enough time (2-3 sec.) to sit up in the tent and
follow it till some tree branches partly blocked my view. I had no
confirmation of what it was till today. It was not an Iridium Flares
because they don't move.”

“I saw a lot of meteors when I went to the Smokies right after halloween. One of them was a white ball, followed by a blue, then green, then red tail. I could hear that thing crackle through the sky.”

“Way cool! I would love to see that someday.”