Fireball Meteor Called Bolide Lights Up Japanese Sky

Nov 4, 2014, 12:59 PM ET

By JOHN FISCHER

A brilliant light that streaked across the skies of Japan Monday night was likely a fireball meteor called a bolide, experts said.

Camera footage filmed from a moving car shows a bright light sailing across the sky in western Japan. Observatories in western Japanese prefectures, including Fukuoka, Hiroshima and Ehime, received eyewitness accounts of a bright object in the sky, according to The Japan Times.

SEE ABC VIDEOS: http://abcnews.go.com/International/fireball-meteor-called-bolide-lights-japanese-sky/story?id=26678086

Photo: AP File

Meteor streaks over eastern US Monday night

USA TODAY NETWORKMichael King, WXIA-TV4:12 p.m. EST November 4, 2014
ATLANTA (WXIA) – Dozens of reports of a fireball crossing the sky emerged Monday evening across 14 eastern states, from as far north as the Great Lakes states and extending as far south as Georgia and Alabama.

As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, the American Meteor Society said they had received nearly 400 reports of one or more meteors crossing the skies at about 6:20 p.m. Monday.

The reports came from Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The six reports from Georgia included one each in Rossville, Statesboro, Homer, Doraville, Alpharetta and Atlanta.

Nearly 200 reports of a fireball streaking overhead were received the the American Meteor Society Monday night.(Photo: AMSMeteors.com)

http://www.11alive.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/11/03/meteor-streaks-over-monday-night/18447239/

From across the pond:

MailOnline - news, sport, celebrity, science and health stories

Meteor shower puts on a spectacular show

The meteor appeared over 12 eastern states Monday night around 6:20pm
Most likely part of the annual Taurid meteor shower
Follows reports of an extra-bright shooting star over western Japan

By ASHLEY COLLMAN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 10:12 EST, 4 November 2014 | UPDATED: 15:39 EST, 4 November 2014

Those who witnessed the marvel said the fireball was greenish-to-white in color as it crossed the sky, and there was no sign that it hit anywhere.

Amazing sight: The above dashcam footage taken by the the Benwood, West Virginia Police Department show the fast movig object seen Monday night

The reports came from the states of Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

These sightings come during the annual Taurid meteor shower, which is going on right now and could lead to more reports of meteors in the next few nights.

Taurid meteors are fragments of the Comet Encke, Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center told WQAD.

Encke is a three-mile wide comet of ice and rock that circles the sun every 3.3 years and its fragments are very large - producing bright meteors when their hit the Earth's atmosphere.

One man in Chicago recorded a fireball traveling through the sky in that city, but it was later determined that the sightings were actually just a promotional stunt carried out by Red Bull.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2820379/Hundreds-residents-eastern-U-S-report-seeing-fast-green-tailed-meteor.html