Stellar Explosion

[avskier]

The following occurred when I(much younger lol) was waiting outside in the early morning for my friend to come outside to go duck hunting with me in the Florida everglades.
In West Hollywood, Florida at 5:30 AM on Nov.29, 1958 I witnessed, with my naked eyes, directly overhead a tiny white flash in a clear night sky and then concentric faint luminous green rings emanating from the center. The farthest that the faint rings emanated was about the same diameter as a 50 cent piece. The rippling rings were only visible for about 30-60 seconds before disappearing. Can you extrapolate backwards in time to determine what I saw? Could it have been a supernova? Or what? This was before satellites!! This my first attempt to garner an explanation. Thank you..............
AVSKIER now in Palmdale, California

 

[ramparts]

Hi avskier,

I'm not sure what this was, to be honest, but it definitely wasn't a supernova - if there had been a supernova visible to the naked eye in 1958, we'd have known about it Also, even if a supernova were close enough to see with the naked eye, we wouldn't be able to see the structure (like rings) from it, as these things are physically very small and to us will all look like they're happening in the exact same spot. If a supernova were close enough that you could actually see the detail by eye, then none of us would be here today! :lol:

 

[kg]

....In West Hollywood, Florida at 5:30 AM on Nov.29, 1958 I witnessed, with my naked eyes, directly overhead a tiny white flash in a clear night sky and then concentric faint luminous green rings emanating from the center.....

Could he have seen a meteor coming directly at him? It would explain the white flash. The luminous green rings could have been a trail seen on end. Cool!

 

[MeteorWayne]

Unlikely to be a meteor. It could be a possible rocket test (just because there were no satellites, doesn't mean there weren't tests).

 

[SpaceTas]

Good mystery. Haven't heard of such before.
Not a supernova: Naked eye supernovae stay visible for months (eg Tycho Supernova, Crab, SN1987A).

Maybe the optical flash from gamma-ray burst; that would explain the flash but no real idea about the concentric green rings. Wild speculation; the gamma-rays ionized the atmosphere (does happen) creating an an aurora. The green being ionized oxygen. But I'd expect the aurora to be over whole sky as a general glow (the gamma-rays would not be that tightly beamed)

My best guess is an early atmospheric test or venting at stage separation. There have been tests where things like barium were released in the upper atmosphere / ionosphere. These glowed as they were ionized. Your description would match, flash from venting vapor, rings as shell spread out maybe a stage separation.

Explorer 1: USA's first successful satellite launch was on 31st Jan 1958. Plenty of attempts (eg Vanguard) beforehand.
Given the date and time it may be possible to find a match.
There were lots of tests flying from Kennedy (See http://www.spacearium.com/special/spaceline/spaceline.org/statistics/rockets.html
No joy from my web-surfing

 

[avskier]

Good mystery. Haven't heard of such before.
Not a supernova: Naked eye supernovae stay visible for months (eg Tycho Supernova, Crab, SN1987A).

Maybe the optical flash from gamma-ray burst; that would explain the flash but no real idea about the concentric green rings. Wild speculation; the gamma-rays ionized the atmosphere (does happen) creating an an aurora. The green being ionized oxygen. But I'd expect the aurora to be over whole sky as a general glow (the gamma-rays would not be that tightly beamed)

My best guess is an early atmospheric test or venting at stage separation. There have been tests where things like barium were released in the upper atmosphere / ionosphere. These glowed as they were ionized. Your description would match, flash from venting vapor, rings as shell spread out maybe a stage separation.

Explorer 1: USA's first successful satellite launch was on 31st Jan 1958. Plenty of attempts (eg Vanguard) beforehand.
Given the date and time it may be possible to find a match.
There were lots of tests flying from Kennedy (See http://www.spacearium.com/special/spaceline/spaceline.org/statistics/rockets.html


Thanks all who responded. To the best of my knowledge, there were never any barium releases above my point in south Florida. Most all rockets at that time were fired from Cape Canaveral traveling east. The initial flash was extremely small and faint (about the size of a pin head to the naked eye). The rings, also very faint, were not traveling as from a moving object, but just emanating from the original flash point. If this was from a traveling rocket burst, I would think there would have been some kind of a visual tail, given the duration of the event. There were about 4 or five rings, with the initial the brightest and subsequent rings much dimmer. The rings were not smoothly concentric but all were simmering and rippling as if seen from from a great distance through the atmosphere.

I realize that it would have been a long shot to have seen a super nova but what do I know? Clearly I did not turn into a piece of charcoal. So, I dream on.

 

[SpaceTas]

Thanks for more detail.
The movement of the rocket would not distort the ring shape from a single release (the material is now in the still atmosphere). But having 4-5 rings is a problem for my idea. There would be a time delay between each release so the center would be shifted.so the result would be a set of offset "smoke" rings. I can't recall multiple release experiments.

Still worth asking the guy of the link about any launches. If there's no launch that definitely rules that out.


In the crazy ideas department, is seeing a very high energy cosmic ray impacting the atmosphere. You's get a flash from the Cherenchov radiation, but getting the rings .... maybe induced aurora created by an electromagnetic pulse, or the cosmic ray shower. Both seem too fast to last 60 sec, and multiple rings ... no idea.