Fireball over Sussex, UK?

[digitalbinary]

I saw something really strange this evening and can't find any details online, so I thought I would make a post here.

Between 9.45 and 10pm (gmt) I noticed a ball of light to the north, moving slowly west-east.
I thought it was an aircraft but something wasn't quite right, and I realised it was a ball of flame.

After about a minute, the ball broke up, most of it seemingly vaporising while a single bright piece dropped vertically to earth.

I'm trying to work out what it was. I don't think it was a meteor, because it was too big and moving too slowly.
I thought maybe an aircraft caught fire or similar, but surely when it exploded the debris would fall in an arc instead of just vertically? And why was there only one fragment instead of a spread of bits?

If anyone has any theories, it would be appreciated!

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Fireball over Sussex?

First of all, when you say Sussex, do you mean Sussex in the UK?
There's a sussex county here in NJ, USA as well. You need to be more specific.

And yes, a one minute duration would be impossible for a meteor, so a reenetry of orbital debris seems most likely.

How accurate is you time of when it occurred, and how long it lasted?

Meteor Wayne

 

[jim48]

I thought you might be in U.K. also. Probably a crippled flying saucer. Smersh will have more details, I'm sure.

 

[digitalbinary]

Sorry, I've changed the subject to state UK.

I'm pretty certain of the time because I left the train station at 9.40, and got home at 10 and I witnessed the fireball a few minutes walk from my house.

It remained in the sky long enough for myself and my father to walk 100 or so meters, stopping to discuss it for a moment, which would make it around one minute before it broke up. I don't know how long it was there before I saw it.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I thought you might be in U.K. also. Probably a crippled flying saucer. Smersh will have more details, I'm sure.

'jim. for an alleged scientist, you're such a schmoo

 

[jim48]

I thought you might be in U.K. also. Probably a crippled flying saucer. Smersh will have more details, I'm sure.

'jim. for an alleged scientist, you're such a schmoo

Flattery will get you everywhere, AsteroidWayne!

 

[SpaceXFanMobius57]

I remember seeing something like what you described when coming home from a high school football game a couple years ago. Only this one was moving faster and more downward. (In SE Virginia)

 

[CommonMan]

Sorry, I've changed the subject to state UK.

I'm pretty certain of the time because I left the train station at 9.40, and got home at 10 and I witnessed the fireball a few minutes walk from my house.

It remained in the sky long enough for myself and my father to walk 100 or so meters, stopping to discuss it for a moment, which would make it around one minute before it broke up. I don't know how long it was there before I saw it.

Maybe someone reported it to one of your local news stations. If you haven't allready found out what it was. If you did or do, post back and let us know.

 

[WiganJu]

Hello there - so glad I read this post.
I live in Wigan (near Manchester) in England. Last night about 10pm both myself and my fourteen year old son saw pretty much what has already been described -
we were both sat on the settee and at first saw a bright yellow/orange coloured ball thing through the top right hand side of the window. I jumped up and went to the window and could see it was actually what I can only describe as a ball of flames. I must admit I also worried about whether it was some kind of plane as it was travelling like an aircraft would i.e. straight across, not downwards if this makes sense.
I watched it for about twenty seconds - it then got smaller and the flames were dwindling by this point. It then disappeared leaving only a black circle and then gone completely!
Both myself and my son were wow what was that.... I was ringing family to see if anyone else had seen it. I eventually emailed my local radio station to see if anyone else had seen it but as of yet have had no reply (maybe it wasnt good enough 'news').
Sorry this isnt that technically written - I can only write what I saw. I am still intrigued and would love for someone to have an explanation. So glad I came upon the person in Sussex - shows I'm not going mad!
Thank you.

 

[digitalbinary]

That's interesting. Surely it can't be the same thing at such a distance?
But for them to happen at almost the same time is odd.

I still havent found any further explainations beyond the space junk suggestion by MeteorWayne.

I've googled, scoured the internet and even searched twitter to see if anyone else saw it but I guess the twitter community was too busy inside tweeting.

I did have the pleasure of seeing a couple of meteors last night too, streaks of light lasting maybe a second or two. Its a shame I live in a city, no chance of decent astro-photos here!

 

[MeteorWayne]

WiganJu, what direction were you facing when you saw it? What direction was it moving?

Actually, two observers 300 km apart (If I did my UK geography right) isn't too far at all. Remember, this is occurring at ~ 80-100 km above the surface (at the start anyway) so can be seen quite far away. At the horizon, you would be seeing something up to 1000 km away, overhead it would be about 80 km. so something a few hundred km away would appear in between.

If we can get a direction from WiganJu that will help pin it down more.

There's another clue that points to a reeentry, but I'll keep that secret till we get direction info from the more northern site

MW

 

[thebigcat]

You are wasting your breath trying to explain to English that Sussex and Greater Manchester aren't on opposite sides of the planet, MW.

 

[WiganJu]

Hi again,

I was facing westerly and the object was travelling in a southerly direction.
Does this help?
Still intrigued and boring the pants of everyone!

Thanx,
Julie

 

[digitalbinary]

Ah, I didn't realise we were talking such long distances. Looking up, I had nothing to judge the distance or size, no reference point.
However, at 80km the object would surely be a speck? It seemed far too big to be that far away.

Try holding a dime at arms length. The flame on top of the torch is about the size of the object I saw before it broke up.
(Not especially accurate by any means, but you get the idea)
For us Brits, try holding a 5p coin at arms length and look at the crown on top of the thistle.

You are wasting your breath trying to explain to English that Sussex and Greater Manchester aren't on opposite sides of the planet, MW.

As it would be wasting our breath trying to explain to Americans that Sussex and Greater Manchester (at 330km/200miles apart) aren't next to eachother?

 

[MeteorWayne]

HAHAHA I figured out the distance OK (I'm in New Jersey, noy your Jersey )

There's a great video of a reentry, I'll see if I can find it.

Please stand by....

 

[Bill_Wright]

My bet is a re-entry of debris of anthropogenic origin in a polar orbit. The piece that seemed to drop straight down was either an angle artifact or had extremely high drag. This is merely my hypothesis based upon what is written above.
-- Bill

 

[MeteorWayne]

That's pretty much Wright Bill

The observer in SE England saw it west to east, the observer in central England saw it moving to the south, so it was probably in an orbit at reasonably high inclination on a NW -> SE track. IIRC, this could have been debris from the infamous Iridium/Kosmos collision a few months ago, but that's speculative. I'll do a little checking on that.

I've found the video I was looking for but the ESA site is downloading very slow at the moment, so I'm trying to find a copy that's loading better.

MW

 

[MeteorWayne]

Hmm, must have just been my ISP being hosed.

Seems to be fine now:

Here's the Jules Verne Reentry video. This was one that was known in advance so cameras were in place to record it; in fact they specifically aimed the reentry and scheduled it over the Pacific for that purpose:

http://a1862.g.akamai.net/7/1862/14448/ ... eentry.swf

 

[WiganJu]

Thank you all so much for your responses - I'm absolutely enthralled by it - want to see it again!

Thank you for the link to the video. Again, fascinating.

Bear in mind I am so an amateur (although very interested now!) - all that I could see of the object was the ball of flames, didnt see any shower type effect or a trail behind it. Just the moving flame ball.

Please keep any theories coming - my friends all think I should stay off the alcohol (ignorants they are lol)!!

MeteorWayne you seem to know your stuff - I take it you are an enthusiast for all of this! Lots of thanks to you for your help!

Julie

 

[WiganJu]

Oh my goodness,

At 9.23pm myself my son and my husband have just seen another one of the fire ball objects. This one seemed to be further away - well either that or smaller.

We have managed to get a short video of it - its from a mobile so quality isnt superb.

Not sure if I can place it on here or if I need to email it if anyone wants to see it.

Thanks,
Julie

 

[nimbus]

Julie,
You can put it up on youtube.

 

[BreezyJ]

Julie -

Do you need some help posting the video? I know we would all be happy to view it!

 

[jim48]

My bet is a re-entry of debris of anthropogenic origin in a polar orbit. The piece that seemed to drop straight down was either an angle artifact or had extremely high drag. This is merely my hypothesis based upon what is written above.
-- Bill

As I said earlier, obviously a crippled flying saucer. Bill, your headshot makes you look just like Marlon Brando in the first Superman movie: "My son... your name is Kal El. You... are the sole survivor of the planet Krypton."

 

[digitalbinary]

:shock: That was an incredible video, I spilt half the contents of my sandwich in my lap watching it. I wish I had seen it live!

That is very similar to what I saw, although (as Julie has said) it didn't have the long streak behind it. Also, after the explosion most of it faded out in less than a second with no debris shower, apart from the single "high drag angle artifact".

Since seeing it, I can't take my eyes off the sky! Playing havock with my sleep pattern. :|


Jim48: If a species of life mastered the art of interplanetary travel, why would it suddenly burst into flames when it got here? Took a wrong turning at Alpha Centuri and dinged a meteor on the way in?

 

[CommonMan]

Jim48 said:
As I said earlier, obviously a crippled flying saucer. Bill, your headshot makes you look just like Marlon Brando in the first Superman movie: "My son... your name is Kal El. You... are the sole survivor of the planet Krypton."[/quote]

Have you looked at your avater lately?