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Weird commet?
Why I'm just now questioning this is beyond me but that's beside the point. Mid-September, I had just arrived back at school, in Ohio, from a trip to Boston. When my boyfriend picked me up, as we pulled out of the parking lot (probly somewhere between 11p.m.-12 a.m.) I saw this considerably sized-if you held a pea between two fingers and held your hand up to the sky, that's about how it scaled out (if that makes sense) it was big! But not moon sized. It was falling directly downward, not even slightly left or right. It was very green and it wasn't super fast like a shooting star but it still was fast. What makes me curious about this thing is that it has kind of a squiggly tail. I guess what you call the meteor of comet fell smooth and in line but the trail behind it was a little squiggly. Then it just burned out. So weird but really pretty. I Can't find anything like it on the Internet.
P.S. If you're going to tell me it's aliens or a UFO or something...don't bother.
4 Answers
- Anonymous6 years agoFavorite Answer
What you saw was likely a "bolide." This is a type of very bright meteor. There were several large meteor/bolide events in the Eastern USA in September so you probably saw one of these.
A bolide is often referred to as a fireball.
Meteors and bolides often have streamers and they can leave a trail. These trails are similar in appearance to a jet contrail and might last from several minutes to a half-hour, and they may be seen to slowly disperse in upper-atmosphere winds.
The American Meteor Society has a webpage listing such sightings, which has listings for fireballs (bolides) sighted in Ohio in Sept. 2014:
http://www.amsmeteors.org/category/fireball-sighti...
Here's another fireball sighting from Ohio a year earlier, caught on tape:
- Anonymous6 years ago
Comets don't move in our sky - they are visible for weeks to months.
What you saw was a meteor. They often leave ragged or twisted tails as they vaporize in our atmosphere.
And larger ones will look like fireballs (which is what they are called).
- 6 years ago
I agree with Poldi.... and, though it may be a little late, the American Meteor Society has an app for iPhone that allows you to report these sightings; they take your view, compare it with others, and determine the path it took to the ground (should it make it that far).