We live in Cheadle , south of manchester, and was taking shoppings out of the boot when my wife shou

Twitter just exploded with reports, pictures, and videos of an extremely bright fireball moving over the northern part of the UK at around 22:00 UTC. I ve seen tweets from folks in Ireland, Manchester, and more. It was traveling east-to-west, and broke up into many pieces as it fell. No reports of it hitting the ground yet, though some pieces may fall all the way down.
It s too early to tell, but this may be a actual meteor that is, a rock burning up or it may be space debris, a piece of a satellite re-entering. Meteors tend to move quickly, zipping across the sky in a few seconds; they are moving at 20 50 kilometers per second and sometimes more. Orbital debris is slower, moving at less than 10 km/sec. Both have been known to break up (like the Peekskill meteor did, or the re-entry of an ATV in 2011 ).
I ll update this as I get more info. But I have to say how jealous I am of everyone who saw this! And if you did witness it, you should file a report quality accommodation brussels with the IMO , so they can collect all the info it may help lead to finding meteorites, pieces that have made it all the way down to the ground!
Just saw this over Llandudno bay. Phenomenally bright and impressive. Only seemed to break up properly as it was overhead, but was spectacular from when we picked up low on the eastern horizon to the point at which we lost track of it as it headed behind us towards Ireland.
I saw this from Pembroke Dock, at just before 11pm, along with a bunch of night fisherman! Amazing. It tracked from east to west, a full 180 degrees field of view. I saw it from a bright green light, through to multiple orange trails of lights it appeared to break up. It seemed to be tracking almost horizontal to the horizon, so it must have been coming in at a very shallow angle. It was visible for so long!
Incredible fireball north to south in lanarkshire 11pm tonight very bright silent large tail looked like two balls very slow about 15 seconds viewed from traffic lights at strathclyde park absolutely incredible
East to west motion is extremely rare for space debris. Was it seen low to the south? If so it might be a spy satellite launched by Israel reentering but I consider that unlikely. I know of no space launches to the west other than those spy satellites by Israel launched at an inclination of 36 degrees to the west. Unless it s path fits an orbital inclination of 36 degrees I doubt it could be space debris.
I was in Glasgow and at 23.00 we all saw what appeared to be a meteor getting burnt up flying due south of us, about 25 degrees above the skyline, it looked very very close. So much so that initially people thought it was a plane on fire. It travelled from East to West and was in view for about 7-8 seconds. It looked quality accommodation brussels like a rocket firework going up with orange bits falling off all the time as you would imagine from a firework, but horizontal. Shortly after my freind phoned me from Leeds after seeing one pass his house window. Must be more than one as this was going in the wrong direction quality accommodation brussels to pass over Leeds? If this is the case, how was it not detected in advance? It was not your normal shooting quality accommodation brussels star, it was like watching quality accommodation brussels a movie! I would like to hear a rational explaination!
We saw it here from our back garden in Dublin 15. Lovely clear night. It came over slightly to the North travelling east to west at a low angle of trajectory. I would say space junk as it moved (in relative terms) slower than a meteor. But have no idea It was in view for a good 15/20 seconds and yellow /gold in colour. By the time we seen it, it was in at least 11 distinctive pieces. Again, it moved slow enough that the pieces quality accommodation brussels could be counted. Would love an email from Bad Astronomy if and when you guys figure out what it was
i saw this late last night as well. it was fairly slow moving (enough time for me to get my camera out to just miss it lol ) i stay in greenock, scotland. it was moving east to west a little south of me. i was in sheer awe. from the two videos that are uploaded quality accommodation brussels here its safe to say it passed by me alot closer
quality accommodation brussels It was a really impressive sight, much larger and more vivid than those videos convey. From where i am (slightly north of Glasgow, Scotland) it went horizontal from left to right and took up a decent chunk of the sky.
I saw this last night while at work around 10:00pm over walkden in manchester, thought at first that it was some kind if firework, traveling from east to west seemed to be breaking up as i watched it for around 20 seconds before it disappeared quality accommodation brussels behind buildings. the front was roughly the size of a 5 pence piece and trailing flaming debris quality accommodation brussels for around 12 inch s behind, quality accommodation brussels unsure how far away this was from where i observed it, but from the video s i have seen posted what i saw was much bigger so just assuming that i was closer to the event.
quality accommodation brussels In the car with my daughter heading from Worsley to East Lancs Rd, noticed bright greenish object trailing orange srarks like firework arcing across the sky. It passed on a flat horizontal trajectory right over the car. It seemed so low we both duckrd in our seats slightly before quality accommodation brussels it carried quality accommodation brussels on out of view. We were really spooked and were talking quality accommodation brussels about what it might have been light aircraft/ helicopter on fire as close to Barton Airport / meter etc all the way home, would have been great to capture it on camera as it was such a unique thing to see.
I saw this at 10.55pm yesterday. It was going east to west over Lancashire (went right over my house) and was breaking up. Very spectacular, seemed to be moving quite slowly as it headed quality accommodation brussels out towards Blackpool and the Irish Sea.
We saw it here in Northern Ireland. Agreed the videos seem to show it tiny and way in the distance, but this thing streaked right above head, for us and seemed so low you felt you could reach up for it .I m thinking its due to size constancy (the moon illusion). Slow and graceful were the words we were using seemed to last quite a while. Definitely quality accommodation brussels heard distant, very low, boom/thuds a few minutes afterwards, would tht have been the sound barrier?? It was a few minutes as apposed to a few seconds afterwards. Fingers crossed this gets a mention on SGU, bob you gotta bring this up.
We live in Cheadle , south of manchester, and was taking shoppings out of the boot when my wife shouted quality accommodation brussels Look up to the sky! and few firy spots were flying right to left and so very close! unbelivable!
Iaia Mcc says it was nearly overhead in Greenock, latitude ~56 degrees. That rules out any space debris as all launches that get that high are either quality accommodation brussels in polar orbit (moving north or south rather than east to west) or were launched to the east giving them a west to east motion. Launching to the west is against the earth s rotation and requires a lot more fuel to reach orbit so isn t done except in the case of the Israel spy satellites which was necessary quality accommodation brussels to avoid dropping rocket stages into populated areas or other nations. For it to be seen rather low to the south from Glascow as well it would be about 30 to 40 miles up when seen which is quite reasonable. The Canada siting is obviously a very different meteor as it was seen hours later (EST is 5 hours behind UT).
We saw what looked like a train low over the Mendip Hills Somerset travelling quality accommodation brussels East to West not sure what time late..before 11.30pm. intially I thought quality accommodation brussels it was a plane breaking up near Bristol . then a train .. it was amazing..
Julian, if the meteor was 80 miles up, it could be seen from Glasgow and Leeds (~200 miles apart) at the same time whichever direction it was moving in. It doesn t have to pass directly overhead both locations. In fact, if your friend saw it out of his window, it certainly wasn t directly overhead quality accommodation brussels then but at an angle of 20 60 degrees is more likely, implying it was overhead at a location 50 150 miles away.
saw this meteor at 22.45 in dalmellington,ayrshire.very bright,seemed to be breaking up as it passed by,it looked quality accommodation brussels like it burned itself out around the dalcairney hills in dalmellington.never seen anything like it before,AMAZING
saw this thing? fall last night (21/9/12) around 11pm it looked to be towards the north of the town i live in ( Keighley, quality accommodation brussels West Yorkshire, UK), looked bright green in colour, looked to hang in the sky before dissapearing, not got a clue what it was but it has made the local news on BBC look north
it could not have been seen in Continental Europe before it was seen over the UK Ireland, it was traveling quality accommodation brussels the other way. There were reports quality accommodation brussels of it in the Northern part of north Ireland and then seen from different parts of main land uk and Dublin. According to time line of sighting it was going from north to south or west to east not the other way.
I live in Hull and saw this. My friend who lives in norway quality accommodation brussels text me to say he s seen a huge fireball in the sky. i went outside quality accommodation brussels and within about 5 mins i saw it fly by east to west, huge green ball of fire with a long burning trail. these video s really dont do justice quality accommodation brussels to what i saw though. i proptly called my friend in iceland and we had a good chuckle quality accommodation brussels about armageddon. and the 2012 mayan prophecy while he watched it burn up.
The persistently reported east to west movement is incompatible with all but (literally!) a handful of satellites. Only objects in a retrograde quality accommodation brussels orbit can move east to west, and those are very few: the two US FIA Radar satellites and a number of Israeli Ofeq/Shavit (none of which are decay candidates, and the Ofeq/Shavit have too low an orbital inclination to be seen over NW Europe anyway).
Looking North from Macclesfield I first saw the bright light from the Meteor from my lounge window. I went outside quality accommodation brussels and watched quality accommodation brussels it track level East to West from the direction of the Pennines. Iwas confused at first as I could hear the roar of a plane overhead and I thought it was an aircraft in trouble. As it tracked west it was as if flares were shooting off from both sides and it appeared to break up and the light went out. It was visible for maybe 15-20 seconds and moving reltively slowly and from my perspe