Month: April 2022

Loud fireball spotted over southern Mississippi mostly heard, hardly seen

A fiery meteor streaked across the morning skies in southern Mississippi yesterday on April 27, 2022.

More than 30 eyewitnesses in the states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi reported seeing a bright fireball at 8:03 a.m. CDT. The sighting was soon followed by numerous reports of loud booms heard in Claiborne County, Mississippi, and surrounding counties.

GLM image from the GOES 16 satellite.
GLM image from the GOES 16 satellite. Credits: NOAA

Approximately 22,000 miles out in space, NOAA’s Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLM) onboard the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) 16 and 17 detected several bright flashes associated with the fragmentation’s of this bolide, or exceptionally bright meteor, which was first spotted 54 miles above the Mississippi River near the Mississippi town of Alcorn.

“This is one of the nicer events I have seen in the GLM data,” said Bill Cooke, lead of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Fireball ground track from eyewitness accounts.
Fireball ground track from eyewitness accounts. Credits: NASA/American Meteor Society

The object – thought to be a piece of an asteroid about a foot in diameter with a weight of 90 pounds – moved southwest at a speed of 55,000 miles per hour, breaking into pieces as it descended deeper into Earth’s atmosphere. It disintegrated about 34 miles above the swampy area north of Minorca in Louisiana.

The fragmentation of this fireball generated an energy equivalent of 3 tons of TNT (trinitrotoluene), which created shock waves that propagated to the ground, producing the booms and vibrations felt by people in the area.

At its peak, the fireball was over 10 times brighter than the Full Moon.

“What struck me as unusual was how few eyewitness reports we had given the skies were so clear,” said Cooke. “More people heard it than saw it.”

by Lance D. Davis

Mars-Saturn, Jupiter-Venus Conjunctions Happening This Month!

Skywatchers, you have the opportunity to see not just one, but two planetary conjunctions during the month of April 2022!

A conjunction is a celestial event in which two planets, a planet and the Moon, or a planet and a star appear close together in Earth’s night sky. Conjunctions have no profound astronomical significance, but they are nice to view. In our Solar System, conjunctions occur frequently between planets because the planets orbit around the Sun in approximately the same plane –  the ecliptic plane – and thus trace similar paths across our sky.

The first planetary meet up occurs on the mornings of April 4 and 5 before sunrise and includes Mars and Saturn, with Saturn being the brightest. These two planets will come together, appearing as almost a single point of light. However, if you grab your binoculars, you’ll easily see the scene with the planets switching positions on each morning.

An illustration of the Mars-Saturn conjunction looking east in Huntsville, Alabama, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 4, 2022.
An illustration of the Mars-Saturn conjunction looking east in Huntsville, Alabama, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 4, 2022. Credit: NASA/Marshall

We will also see a bright Jupiter ascend quickly in the morning twilight, heading towards Venus in the final week of April. Catch a great view of the planets on the morning of April 27, which will include a waxing Moon.

Jupiter and Venus will then meet in conjunction during the morning of April 30 – appearing to nearly collide into each other. Due to the glare from both planets, observers will see them merge into one very bright, spectacular glow!

An illustration of the Jupiter-Venus conjunction looking east in Huntsville, Alabama, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 30, 2022.
An illustration of the Jupiter-Venus conjunction looking east in Huntsville, Alabama, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 30, 2022. Credit: NASA/Marshall

Venus’s orbit is closer to the Sun than the Earth’s, and Jupiter’s orbit is much farther away, so the proximity is an illusion, occurring only because Earth, Venus, and Jupiter happen to be approximately aligned. This celestial event will continue on the morning of May 1, but the positions of the planets, Jupiter and Venus, will be reversed.

If you want to know what else is in the sky for April, check out the latest “What’s Up” video from Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Enjoy all this month has to offer as you watch the skies!

by Lance D. Davis