Жители Калифорнии и Невады наблюдали падение метеорита

SIERRA FIREBALL DECODED: On Sunday morning, April 22nd, just as the Lyrid meteor shower was dying down, a spectacular fireball exploded over California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. The loud explosion rattled homes from central California to Reno, Nevada, and beyond. According to Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Envronment Office, the source of the blast was a meteoroid about the size of a minivan.

"Elizabeth Silber at Western University has searched for infrasound signals from the explosion," says Cooke. "Infrasound is very low frequency sound which can travel great distances. There were strong signals at 2 stations, enabling a triangulation of the energy source at 37.6N, 120.5W. This is marked by a yellow flag in the map below."



"The energy is estimated at a whopping 3.8 kilotons of TNT, so this was a big event," he continues. "I am not saying there was a 3.8 kiloton explosion on the ground in California. I am saying that the meteor possessed this amount of energy before it broke apart in the atmosphere. [The map] shows the location of the atmospheric breakup, not impact with the ground."

"The fact that sonic booms were heard indicates that this meteor penetrated very low in atmosphere, which implies a speed less than 15 km/s (33,500 mph). Assuming this value for the speed, I get a mass for the meteor of around 70 metric tons. Hazarding a further guess at the density of 3 grams per cubic centimeter (solid rock), I calculate a size of about 3-4 meters, or about the size of a minivan."

"This meteor was probably not a Lyrid; without a trajectory, I cannot rule out a Lyrid origin, but I think it likely that it was a background or sporadic meteor."

News and eyewitness reports: #1, #2, #3, #4.

CRESCENT MOON ALERT: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west into the twilight. You might see something like this:



Miguel Claro photographed the crescent moon from Almada, Portugal. "Look just below the bridge," he points out. "You can also see Jupiter."

The slender crescent will be beaming through the twilight for the next few evenings. On Tuesday, April 24th, it will glide by Venus for a spectacular sunset conjunction. Don't miss it!

more images: from Stefano De Rosa of Turin, Italy; from Robert Arn of Fort Collins, CO; from Russell Vallelunga of Phoenix, Arizona; from M. Raid Tural of Ankara, Turkiye; from Zain Ahmed of Karachi, Pakistan

Над США пролетел метеор, прогремев на всю Калифорнию

Над северной частью Невады и Калифорнии в воскресенье днем пролетел метеор, свидетелями появления которого стали многие местные жители, сообщает Los Angeles Times.

Метеор, принадлежащий к ежегодному потоку лирид, развалился на части и сгорел в земной атмосфере, сообщили в Национальной метеорологической службе США.

В полицию поступило множество звонков от обеспокоенных жителей, ставших свидетелями появления метеора. Звук вхождения в плотные слои атмосферы, как сообщается, был слышен в южных округах Калифорнии. Особенностью метеора стало то, что его падение произошло днем, когда след болида сложнее заметить.

Поток лирид активен во второй половине апреля. Его пик приходится на 22 апреля. Метеоры из этого потока появляются на небе в районе созвездия Лира. «Газета.Ru»