Did you hear the booms or see the comet, Thatcher this morning?

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Seamaiden

Seamaiden

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Early this morning we were sitting here at home, chatting and having our coffee. All of a sudden we hear a massive, and I do mean MASSIVE, BOOM -- BOOM! Then more rumbles and booms. Sounded like an explosion to me, we jumped up because lemme tell ya, it was LOUD. Shook the hell out of the house, sounded like a sonic boom or an earthquake, except that we're in this teeny tiny pocket of almost zero groundshake in California and the house wasn't shaking even though the windows were shaking all to hell.

So I get onto the internets and find one of those sites for listening to the local scanner frequencies. Can't learn anything except that there are a LOT of reports of an explosion or series of explosions.

Now, a little over an hour later we learn via KCRA that the National Weather Service is reporting that the comet Thatcher hit the atmosphere over Tuolomne County. This explosion was heard by us, well over 50mi away by my guesstimation, and even further away by some friends up in South Lake Tahoe!

So, didja hear it? Didja see it? Woman phoned in from Ceres saying she saw what she thought was a "falling star" (hey, some people think hummingbirds are insects, what can I say?).

This explosion scared the living shit outta me. It's been decades since I've heard a sonic boom, grew up hearing them when dad was a Navy pilot in San Diego. But those are just two booms, boom BOOM. Not BOOM BOOM rumble rumble BOOM boom rumble rumble, for almost a full minute.

Dayumn...!

Btw, anyone have a good, reliable site for police/public safety personnel scanning and listening? There's a serious lack of traffic on the channels I'm listening to.
 
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caregiverken

caregiverken

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I didn't hear it..I'm in central cali...:(
Sounds exciting! So, It was a sonic boom from the comet.
Pretty cool :) I heard about the meteor shower I shoulda been watching
 
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Dr. Detroit

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Nothing down here in Orange County. No comet can penetrate the smog, so no fears here.
 
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fishwhistle

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''Now, a little over an hour later we learn via KCRA that the National Weather Service is reporting that the comet Thatcher hit the atmosphere over Tuolomne County."
Thats what the goverment always says just before the aliens invade...
 
caregiverken

caregiverken

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If that comet came into the atmosphere, That was pretty close call...How big is this comet?
How come I only heard about a meteor shower?...and not a Comet passing that close to the earth?
Seems like that would have been some news...The story seems to have changed since I read it this morn.

There are two different explanations emerging for what may have been behind a bright light and loud boom reported in the sky Sunday morning, adding mystery to the event.
Some experts said the particles thought to have been flying across the sky were likely no larger than a pebble, while one astronomer said there was one large meteor - a fireball - the size of a washing machine


Read more: http://www.kcra.com/news/30937145/detail.html#ixzz1spPYo9Hp
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

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Ok, as I understand it, the Lyrid meteor shower is a result of the Comet Thatcher (should comet be capitalized...? Hell if I know). What hit the atmosphere yesterday was NOT the comet itself, but debris from its tail or the associated shower of meteors, again as I understand it. In other words, had the comet itself hit, we wouldn't, or I wouldn't be typing about it today. Or yesterday.

But, reading this updated article you've posted, it seems that at least one astronomer is saying that the meteor that hit yesterday is not ipso facto from the Lyrids or Comet Thatcher.

So... I don't know what the fuck to think, but I'll tell you this much--when I heard it I ran outside fully expecting to see a huge plume, like a nuclear explosion-type plume.
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

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So, news story this morning gives a new location for the meteorite. I KNEW the sounds I heard were coming from damn near directly north, and now I know I was right. Lotus, in El Dorado county, next county NORTH of us. Guy found two pieces of the meteorite.


LOTUS, Calif. (KCRA) -- Researchers believe tiny meteorites found in the Sierra foothills of Northern California were part of a giant fireball that exploded over El Dorado County on Sunday.

Professional meteorite hunter Robert Ward found two 10-gram rocks along the road in Lotus on Tuesday."This is the find of a lifetime," said Ward on Wednesday. "This is only the third time a meteorite has been witnessed to fall in California in recorded history."
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Ward, of Prescott, Ariz., has been hunting and collecting meteorites around the world for more than 20 years.Ward said he "instantly knew" it was a rare meteorite known as CM -- carbonaceous chondrite -- a rare rock that is older than the sun."This may never happen again in my lifetime," he said.He plans to keep some of the rock for his personal collection and give the rest to Arizona State University to study.Scientists are eager to study the space rock. Experts think the meteor is between 4.6 and 6 billion years old.Astrophysicist Scott Sandford of Nasa said he wants to study the composition of the meteorite."We are hoping that if we find a good trajectory of this thing, we can find out where this object lived before it got here," Sandford said as he was looking for the rock."We would also like to get samples to study its composition. What minerals does it contain? What organics does it contain?"On Saturday, scientists from UCLA to Sierra College are hoping to have teams in Lotus searching for fragments.The boom, Sandford said, was caused by the speed of the space rock as it entered the atmosphere. Meteorites enter Earth's upper atmosphere faster than the speed of sound, thus creating a sonic boom.
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Lisa Warren​
"The last time something like this happened was 1969 in Australia."Residents from Placerville to Coloma witnessed the fireball as the meteorite exploded into pieces.Bits of the meteor could be strewn over an area as long as 10 miles, in the same area where gold was first discovered in California, at Sutter's Mill in 1848.

Read more: http://www.kcra.com/news/30957841/detail.html#ixzz1tA6sJezx
 

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