GREAT BALLS O’ FIRE!

Posted on 9 September 2008 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is in from SpaceWeather!

FIREBALL OUTBURST: This morning, Sept. 9th, a surprising flurry of fireballs lit up the sky over eastern parts of the United States.  All-sky cameras at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recorded 25+ meteors, most as bright as Jupiter or Venus.  A preliminary analysis by NASA astronomers suggests this is an outburst of "September Perseids," a little-known shower that has erupted this way three times in the past century. 

Although the show is almost certainly over, sky watchers are advised to be on the lookout for more fireballs tonight and in the nights ahead; the September Perseids are not well understood and they could surprise us again.

Visit http://spaceweather.com for more information and updates to this developing story.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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7 Comments

  1. Paul, Just This Guy, You Know? says:
    9 September 2008 at 5:13 PM

    Father, I suspect you of only posting this so that you could use that title.

  2. RichR says:
    9 September 2008 at 6:13 PM

    I like space stuff, and so does my 5 year old. We go to this site to see when the International Space Station is flying by (it’s usually about 8 times a month that it is visible):

    http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html

    Go to the upper left window titled, “Sighting Opportunities” and select your country. it’s really neat!

  3. Christabel says:
    9 September 2008 at 6:19 PM

    Goodness gracious!

  4. Woody Jones says:
    9 September 2008 at 6:51 PM

    A repetition of the great light foretold by Our Lady of Fatima as the sign of the onset of the world war?

  5. Maureen says:
    9 September 2008 at 7:22 PM

    It’s heavenly fireworks in celebration of bishops growing spines. :)

  6. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf says:
    9 September 2008 at 7:34 PM

    Paul: LOL! No… I often post things like this. Thanks for the chuckle.

  7. supertradmom says:
    10 September 2008 at 11:10 AM

    Keep up the space news. We love these type of updates at our house. Could we have been warned of these fire balls ahead of time?

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