Heads up, Earthlings! The annual Perseid meteor shower is at its peak this week.
If you can––go outside and look up. If not––we've got you covered! From 8 PM CT Tuesday to 4 AM CT Wednesday (August 11-12), we'll have a telescope view of the sky over NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Most of the time, our live stream will look pretty dark. A Perseid meteor will look like a streak or flash of light. Early morning Wednesday (2 AM onwards) will be the best time to spot the Perseids, but they could show up any time during the night. So keep your eyes peeled, and happy stargazing!
Fireball seen over Illinois last evening around 8 AM local
Numerous eyewitnesses in the midwestern states reported seeing a bright fireball last night at 8:06 PM Central Standard Time (2021 February 4 2:06 UTC). The event was also recorded by three internet accessible cameras in the region and 2 NASA all sky cameras located at Hiram and Oberlin Colleges in Ohio; unfortunately, the fireball was so distant from the NASA cameras that it was right on the horizon, precluding a trajectory solution from their data. But an analysis of the visual records using the camera azimuths to constrain the solution shows that the meteor appeared 48 miles above Lodge County Park, north of Monticello, Illinois. Proceeding slightly south of west at 33,000 miles per hour, the meteor managed to travel 27 miles through the upper atmosphere before finally ablating 28 miles above Maroa on US 51.
No meteorites are thought to have been produced by this event.
Many eyewitnesses in the SouthEast report seeing a bright fireball at 7:04:39 PM Eastern Standard Time (2020 December 23 00:04:39 UTC). It was also detected by 4 NASA all sky meteor cameras in the region and an analysis of the video data shows that the fireball – which was caused by an asteroidal fragment 4 inches in diameter and weighing about 2 pounds – became visible at an altitude of 47 miles above the hilly country just south of Braswell, Georgia. Descending at a very steep angle, the meteor, moving at 29,000 miles per hour, passed over the town of Rockmart before disintegrating 20 miles above Aragorn. Its former orbit is a low inclination asteroidal type, with an aphelion well beyond the orbit of Mars.
Eyewitnesses in Alabama reported seeing a fireball last night at 8:35 PM Central Standard Time. It was also captured by 2 of our meteor cameras in the SouthEast (located here at MSFC and in Chickamauga, Georgia) and an analysis of the video data shows that we are dealing with a small fragment of a comet which entered the atmosphere over the northern part of Greene County, Alabama. Moving southwest at 83,000 miles per hour, the comet piece fragmented 42 miles above Gainesville, near the Alabama/Mississippi border.
