Houston - object in sky

[Irishman]

Friday night, August 1, approx. 9:15 pm EDT, I saw something in the sky that was very impressive, and I'm trying to identify it. From Houston, Texas (actually the Clear Lake area, though viewable across Houston), I saw something pass across the sky. It was off toward the west (with the crescent moon visible), passing from south to north at something of a flat, slightly downward arc. It was an object streaking across the sky, kinda like a meteor. It was very bright - at least as bright as the crescent moon. It was also fairly large for a meteor - it had approx. the width of the visual diameter of a pencil at arm's length, perhaps a little smaller. It took about 4 to 6 seconds to sweep about 5 fist widths (this is a guess - I didn't think to measure at the time). As it went across the sky, glowing basically white, it then broke up into several pieces that glowed orange as they faded.

It didn't seem like a typical meteor, because those usually flash past very quickly - less than a second. This took several seconds to pass. At first I thought it might be an Iridium flare until it broke up.

I heard secondhand that Channel 13 reported people calling in who saw it, and suggest that it was a comet fragment. My thought was perhaps orbital debris, because it was moving so slowly.

Does anybody have more info on this object? Anybody else see it?

It was very impressive and amazing. About 4 of us were standing outside when it went past, and we all were impressed.

[Kaptain K]

Sounds like a bolide (fireball meteor) to me. I have seen several that have taken several seconds to cross the sky. Some of them have broken up (or exploded) at the end.

[beskeptical]

Almost definitely a small rock or space debris entering the atmosphere. It doesn't take much more than a grain of sand size or a tiny bit bigger rock to cause a meteor display such as you described.

(BTW, I'm saying the same thing as the Captain in case it sounds like I'm describing something different.)

[cyswxman]

Perhaps it could have been a small piece of junk that had been in a decaying orbit (a polar orbit, based on your description) and reentered.

[Tensor]

I saw what I think was a bolide this morning, about 2:30 AM EDT. I live about 50 miles south of Tampa Fl. The object moved relatively slowly from SSW to NNE. It was visible for about 3 seconds near the zenith and broke up into fragment at the end. While moving, it was slightly less bright than Mars (which was why I was observing at that time) and the breakup was slightly brighter than Mars. The fragments were visible for about 1 second after the breakup.

[Irishman]

If it's a bolide, why is it traveling so slowly? Most meteors I've seen (including the ones in the Leonids meteor shower last November) go by in less than a second, just a flash of light and if you're looking in the wrong direction you miss it completely.

[RMallon]

If it's a bolide, why is it traveling so slowly? Most meteors I've seen (including the ones in the Leonids meteor shower last November) go by in less than a second, just a flash of light and if you're looking in the wrong direction you miss it completely.

Just some thoughts...
I've always heard of meteors/rites traveling at many miles per second. What is considered to be slow or very slow for a meteor? Guess it's possible for some to be very slow, relatively speaking.

Any meteor flash in the night sky would be like a moving point of light in a blackened room, - is point of light moving parallel left to right to your eyes or far away from the left towards you to the right? Without a frame of reference, you can't really say.

A very brief meteroite trail might be one that burned up incredible fast moving parallel to the earth's surface, or maybe it was slower, falling nearly straight down.

3D night sky, tough to have a frame of reference for a metorite trail, its true direction.

Here's a cool Leonids time exposure...
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/9812/leonids100_am_big.jpg

Imagine just only one trail in that image. Hard to say how long its burn trail is. Depends on the angle it enters the atmosphere.

[Donnie B.]

A large meteor flashes quickly because it burns up fast, and you see it covering only a relatively short distance. A larger chunk lasts longer, and you get a better estimation of its motion.

The fact that it lasted a relatively long time may mean that it was a piece of space junk rather than an extraterrestrial visitor. Remember how long the Columbia debris was visible in several of the videos.

Still, even a natural bolide can be visible for quite a while. Since they're quite high in the sky, it's a long distance from horizon to horizon. If the bolide does not burn up quickly, even at astronomic speeds it can be visible for many seconds. There are lots and lots of examples, including amateur videos of some objects that were seen by hundreds of people across several states.

[Kaptain K]

The minimum speed of a meteor is about 7 miles/second (Earth's escape velocity). Maximum recorded speed is in the high teens of mi/s. One daylight fireball on Aug 10, 1972* lasted long enough for two tourist to catch it on super 8 movies. It was also hot enough to trigger infrared sensors on a military spacewatch satellite.
More recently, one over the northeast US was well triangulated, because it was video taped by several fans at sporting events. In short, meteors can last from less than a second to tens of seconds! 8)

*http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/1972.html

[beskeptical]

If it's a bolide, why is it traveling so slowly? Most meteors I've seen (including the ones in the Leonids meteor shower last November) go by in less than a second, just a flash of light and if you're looking in the wrong direction you miss it completely.

The quick meteor streaks are often dust size particles so they are literally gone in a second or two. So size influences how long a meteor will be visible. But other factors influence what you are seeing.

A meteor can enter the atmosphere at different angles and directions. The Earth can plough into a meteor, the meteor can catch up to the Earth, or the meteor can come from the pole directions. It can hit the atmosphere anywhere from 90^ entry to a more a parallel angle to the Earth's surface.

The fireball I saw in Texas years ago lasted a very long time. The Peekskill meteorite which was big enough to reach the ground was one you see in the TV news reruns over and over. It was filmed by many people who were at local highschool football games all over Indiana.

The Leonids fireballs in 1998 went off like flashcubes.

So there is lots of variation.

[Irishman]

RMallon, I think you've misunderstood me. The ones I've seen may cross the whole sky, or 3/4 of it, in less than a second. They are not short tailed, but just very fast. This one was very slow.

Any particular source for this one?

[RMallon]

Twice now that I would glance to see a satellite in orbit, then a moment later it would disappear, like using a cloaking device. A quick surmise of the sun's position in relation to the "invisible" satellite showed the craft just happened into the Earth's shadow.

First time I noticed this was just a couple seconds after the "slow" moving point of light disappeared.

Then again, like someone said above, what you saw might had been space debris.

[beskeptical]

PERSEID FIREBALL: Although the peak of the 2003 Perseid meteor shower is still a week away, sky watchers are already spotting some Perseids. This one, for instance, appeared over El Paso, Texas, just last night. Recorded by one of the Sandia Meteor Detection Network's all-sky cameras, the exploding fireball was almost as bright as a full moon.

There's a picture on spaceweather.com today of a recent fireball. "Last night" would mean it was on the 4th of August but maybe you saw a fireball from the same shower.

[you_know_hugh]

Well, I live in Germany, though I am an Irishman like the penname of our
bollide observer. What I saw last night was this:

Yesterday, just after the sad defeat of Germany in the EM, i.e. around 22:30, I looked out my attic window to the north, direction Frankfurt Main airport, 50 km away, where I often see airplanes coming and going. I regarded also the moon briefly overhead, which apart from planet (Jupiter?) near it was only celestial object visible on this near-midsummer day. I then looked back to direction Frankfurt and for approximately 1 to 2 seconds saw a planet-large light move parallel to horizon, and only a few degrees over it from left to the right (west to east). Then it disappeared.
Now it was not an airplane because it had no signal lights, and planes don't disappear like that. Could it have been ISS or other satellite ?
From http://www.heavens-above.com/passsummary.asp?lat=49.998&lng=8.273&alt=98&loc=Ma inz&TZ=CET&satid=25544&Date=38152.4166666667&Mag=
we know it wasn't ISS. That sight unfortunately has a cut-off of about 15 deg elevation for satellite tracks so even if it was one it wouldn't be in there. Some bollide type thing might be possible, I suppose. It could only have been flying there for about 30 sec at most as I only looked away to the moon for about 20 sec.

Any ideas?
you_know_hugh

[glen chapman]

regarding the original question. Many years ago I saw something similar, that also took a number of seconds to cross the sky. This sucker was big. I mean a couple of fists wide held at arms length.

Rang the local observatory next morning all fired up about my UFO.

The explanation. It was a very slow moving meteor moving through very high level water vapour. What I saw was not the object, but the bow wave it was cutting from through the unseen vapour.

Dont know about anyone else but feel that is way cooler than seeing a mere UFO

Glen Chapman

[JustAGuy]

Any ideas?
you_know_hugh

Potentially an Iridium flare. Heaven's-Above has all the info to figure out if it was one.

And I wouldn't rule out an airplane just yet. A plane 10+ miles away coming straight at you with its landing lights on will appear to just be a single, very bright object. As the plane banks away, the object will move slowly left or right, then fade out. No signal lights are visible, just one bright, white light moving parrallel to the horizon.

If what you saw didn't fade out slowly (over a second or two) then that rules out the plane and we're left with the flare. Iridium flares can both fade out slowly (if the flare is in the sun the whole time) or suddenly (if the sattelite crosses into the Earth's shadow mid-flare).

[JustAGuy]

The explanation. It was a very slow moving meteor moving through very high level water vapour. What I saw was not the object, but the bow wave it was cutting from through the unseen vapour.

Dont know about anyone else but feel that is way cooler than seeing a mere UFO

Glen Chapman

You, my friend, have witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime (or actually, quite less) occurance. I am extremely jealous.

[milli360]

I know this is a thread from last year, but you_know_hugh bumped it and while waiting for the Boötids (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=14481), I thought I'd look into whether Irishman's and Tensor's bolides might have a similar radiant. So, I have a question. Keith, were you really using EDT in Houston that night? :)