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Shooting star seems to have exploded above Tokyo

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Goodness gracious... great balls of fire!

12 ( +13 / -1 )

That's awesome, and pretty sobering. Imagine something bigger just smashing in unannounced one day on Tokyo.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

ah just take us out at this point, I'm over it

7 ( +11 / -4 )

I’d suggest it was not an explosion they heard, but the sound of it breaking the sound barrier.

12 ( +12 / -0 )

I smell the storyline of a new TV drama!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

thank goodness a fragment of it didn't crash on a lake and decimated an entire population

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Meteor strikes are nature’s way of asking “how’s that space programme getting along?”

Bernard Marks, the answer is if it’s big enough, obliteration greater than any atomic bomb we could build or the end of the majority of life on this planet (the Dinosaurs didn’t have much of a space programme!). That’s why the world needs to put a lot more in to the search and mitigation programmes to find them before they arrive unannounced and in time to do something about them, ergo the mitigation programmes.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

This explains what I heard last night. It was a big noise, but not piercing. Nothing that would wake the family. I thought it was thunder, but when I checked the radar, the line of storms that was over Tokyo all day, had moved too far south to create any lightning. Cool. I remember seeing The Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 when I was a kid while walking with my mom. It was freaky. Looked like a couple skydivers tumbling together across the sky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Great_Daylight_Fireball If anyone else is old and geezer enough to have seen this.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

A star in the east, I'm only "plage of frogs" away from completing my 2020 apocalypse bingo card!

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Yeah, as some people have posted, kind of puts things in perspective doesn’t it? And yes, I support an astroid mitigation program as well, which is why I’m happy that SpaceX and NASA are working on their stuff in the US.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I thought it was thunder, too, because it was raining before that.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Meteors hit the Earth all the time. 90-95% burn up (vaporize) before reaching ground. 5-10 times a year locally visible events happen. Larger ones hit once every 5 years which are seen across hundreds of KMs.

Thousands of smaller "meteorites" hit the planet yearly. These things are worth lots of cash and are an interesting item for your fireplace mantle. Often, they are just laying on the ground, no crater created.

https://www.space.com/33695-thousands-meteorites-litter-earth-unpredictable-collisions.html

The Earth is a death trap. We need to get off this rock, spread out into the galaxy as far as possible to avoid the extinction of humans. Mars isn't far enough. We need to get extra-Solar. The good news is, we have some time (4 B yrs), but humans will delay action and there will be other life ending events possible between now and then. A directed gamma-ray burst in our direction could have happened 1M years ago, headed our way, we don't know it, and will never see it coming.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Sometimes, "shooting stars" or meteorites leave pieces of nickel or iron on Earth . . . apparently there are also remnants called tektites which are made of glass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#Composition

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A star in the east, I'm only "plage of frogs" away from completing my 2020 apocalypse bingo card!

Thanks for the laugh, OzBurger. Brilliant.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

The Earth is a death trap. We need to get off this rock, spread out into the galaxy as far as possible to avoid the extinction of humans. 

Sure. Let's go! Let's try to colonize and pollute and make a hot mess of the rest of the universe now that we've screwed over this bit of heaven under the sun. Great plan. Frankly, should it go that way, our extinction might be the just deserts and a lesson to all other inhabitants who share the universe with us for the way we've mismanaged things.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Everything is ok because Itomori was evacuated in time.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I first became of aware of it at around 2.30ish when i heard what sounded like a medium pitch whizzing sound - something like you hear on submarine movies when a torpedo is fired, then after a bit a loud whipcrack.

My first dreamlike thought was, "ah well, North Koreans finally gone and done it".. but no big flash, so ignored it and tried to get back to sleep.

A meteor sounds a bit boring right... ? I wonder if its entry into the atmosphere set of ICBM alerts ? And anyway how come everyone missed it ?

Maybe it really was a North Korean missile, and Aegis system did its thing which would have been that loud cracking noise at the end.... Ah but I have my doubts that Aegis doens't work that well..

I'd like to think it was an Alien spacecraft in trouble, accidentally entering our atmosphere partially-decloaked only to fix their issue and disappear again with their Hyperdrive at full power - hence the cracking noise and big flash of light. (One has to hope we're not alone and there's someone out there willing at some point to help us).

0 ( +0 / -0 )

One has to have wishful thinking in these times !

Like saying "maybe I will land a job", or maybe "I will win the Lottery" or even "both" ! Wishful thinking... aka "hope"

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sure. Let's go! Let's try to colonize and pollute and make a hot mess of the rest of the universe now that we've screwed over this bit of heaven under the sun. Great plan. Frankly, should it go that way, our extinction might be the just deserts and a lesson to all other inhabitants who share the universe with us for the way we've mismanaged things.

The Earth is going to end. That is a fact. Sol is going to become a red giant and expand beyond the orbit of Earth. Well before then, all the water will be boiled away. https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q79.html These are facts.

High energy gamma rays are also facts: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1878 Where they point is the unknown. About every 40 yrs, a "near Sol" supernova happens and high energy gamma rays are ejected. The energy involved could only destroy the biosphere by destroying the protective ozone layer, which would have plankton collapse and the entire food chain would end. Within a few years, humans would all be dead.

There are random large asteroid collisions too. Think the numbers are every 100M yrs or so, this happens. Over the last 540M years, 5-6 of these extinction hits have occurred on Earth.

There a number of other events: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth

Pollution of other planets will happen just by humans arriving and breathing. We carry millions of organisms. That life will figure out a way to survive if there is any atmosphere at all. The number of humans exported will always be tiny, so by the time pollution becomes any issue, humans will have been there for hundreds of years, probably thousands of years. It will be a "local issue." Pollution on Earth has needed direct human consideration for over 100 yrs. Plastics, petrochemicals and fossil fuel use. On a foreign planet, there won't be any "fossil fuels", so we'll have to use nuclear, solar, geothermal, wind and other power sources from the start. I doubt there will be full ecosystems with animals and trees where ever we colonize. The life there will be completely incompatible with humans and will likely attack our bodies and the bacteria we need to live.

We need to get off this rock and out of the Solar system. It will take 10+ generations to accomplish. There are many fields of science that need drastic expansion to make human survival possible beyond a few years. Every long journey begins with the first step, followed by another and another.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I saw something like this happen over Los Angeles back in 1983, I think it was. I was driving on the freeway at about 2 am, and at first I thought it was a nuclear attack. Didn't hear any explosion, but it became as bright as daylight for a moment, twice. Not something one readily forgets.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I heard it. I thought something had happened near my place. I went out to look, but so nothing. I guess I should have been looking up!

I wonder if China or another neighbor was up to something!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahuika_crater

There is some evidence that large meteor strikes are far more common than is typically acknowledged. The last large crater appears to have formed during the 15th century off of New Zealand's South Island. Some accounts state that a Chinese colony on South Island was wiped out by the consequent tidal wave, as well as a Chinese fleet that was in the area at the time. After this event China turned inwards, ignoring the rest of the world. World history could have been much different without that particular asteroid strike.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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