Lake of the Ozarks area residents say they saw a large fireball cross the horizon at around 7:20 p.m. on Friday evening.
News outlets across Missouri and neighboring states, even into Alabama, reported similar sightings Friday evening.
Spotters reported what looked like a flash of bright light across the night sky, and while some at first thought it was lightning, others say they knew immediately it was something more special. At this time, there are no reports of debris reaching the ground. The Taurid meteor showers annually take place this time of year and peak in mid-November.
According to Bill Cook, Lead for the NASA Meteorite Environment Office, the meteorite fire ball began to burn up about 25 miles above the town of Bull Shoals in Northern Arkansas. It broke apart approximately 25 miles above the town of Mincy, Mo., located in Southern Missouri. “The object survived 2.5 seconds in the earth’s atmosphere, moving at a speed of 41,000 mph.,” Cook said. “That is on the slow side for meteors,” Cook said. Meteors can move from 25,000 to 150,000 mph. “At its brightest, it was three times brighter than the moon. Based on its brightness and speed, we estimate it was caused by a piece of asteroid three feet across and weighing one ton. What people saw was a 3-foot, one-ton rock, burning up in earth’s atmosphere.” No meteorite debris had been reported as of Monday, Nov. 5. “Really big rocks, if they move slow enough, can create debris on the ground,” Cook added. Meteorites can be seen hundreds of miles away. This meteorite was reported as being seen in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Cook assists NASA in analyzing bright media events that occur in the United States and then he reports his findings to NASA. “I do space rocks for a living,” Cook brightly quipped.
According to Cook, this meteor event was not a part of the Taurid Meteor Showers that is going on now. “This was a low-level meteor shower. Fire balls have been happening a fair amount recently and they will continue to go on this month. “The Nov. 2 meteor was a member of the sporadic background and was a random visitor from the belt,” Cook said.
EarthSky.org, is encouraging fans of celestial displays to look up tonight where they will possibly see up to five meteors per hour. The American Meteor Society says Taurid meteor showers are so enjoyable because of the frequency with which meteors can be seen.
According to EarthSky.org, the long-lasting South Taurid meteor shower is active from late September to late November, with this week bringing especially good nights to watch for meteors, possibly featuring a higher-than-average rate of South Taurid meteors. The Taurids peak around Nov. 12.
Meteor Activity Outlook for November 3-9, 2018
According the American Meteor Society's meteor activity outlook for Saturday, Nov. 3 through Friday, Nov. 9, the moon will reach its new phase on Wednesday, Nov. 7. At this time the moon will be located near the sun and will be invisible at night. This weekend (Nov. 3 and 4) the waning crescent moon will rise during the early morning hours but will not cause any problems viewing meteors as long as you keep it out of your field of view.
The main problem for viewers in the Lake area could be cloudy skies: the National Weather Service is calling for mostly cloudy or rainy weather through Monday night.
According to NASA.com, large fireball meteors are common in the fall.
From NASA's Publication, 'Meteors & Meteorites'
Shooting stars, or meteors, are bits of interplanetary material falling through Earth's atmosphere and heated to incandescence by friction. These objects are called meteoroids as they are hurtling through space, becoming meteors for the few seconds they streak across the sky and create glowing trails.
Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44 tone’s or 44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on the Earth each day. Several meteors per hour can usually be seen on any given night. Sometimes the number increases dramatically—these events are termed meteor showers.
Some occur annually or at regular intervals as the Earth passes through the trail of dusty debris left by a comet. Meteor showers are usually named after a star or constellation that is close to where the meteors appear in the sky. Perhaps the most famous are the Perseids, which peak around 12 August every year. Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which swings by the Sun every 135 years. Other meteor showers and their associated comets are the Leonids (Tempel-Tuttle), the Aquarids and Orionids (Halley), and the Taurids (Encke). Most comet dust in meteor showers burns up in the atmosphere before reaching the ground; some dust is captured by high-altitude aircraft and analyzed in NASA laboratories.
Meteorites
Chunks of rock and metal from asteroids and other planetary bodies that survive their journey through the atmosphere and fall to the ground are called meteorites. Most meteorites found on Earth are pebble to fist size, but some are larger than a building. Early Earth experienced many large meteorite impacts that caused extensive destruction.
One of the most intact impact craters is the Barringer Meteorite Crater in Arizona, about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) across, formed by the impact of a piece of iron-nickel metal approximately 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter. It is only 50,000 years old and so well preserved that it has been used to study impact processes. Since this feature was recognized as an impact crater in the 1920s, about 170 impact craters have been identified on Earth.
Well-documented stories of meteorite-caused injury or death are rare. In the first known case of an extraterrestrial object to have injured a human being in the U.S., Ann Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama, was severely bruised by an 8-pound (3.6-kilogram) stony meteorite that crashed through her roof in November 1954.
Meteorites may resemble Earth rocks, but they usually have a burned exterior. This fusion crust is formed as the meteorite is melted by friction as it passes through the atmosphere. There are three major types of meteorites: the "irons," the "stones," and the stony-irons. Although the majority of meteorites that fall to Earth are stony, more of the meteorites that are discovered long after they fall are irons—these heavy objects are easier to distinguish from Earth rocks than stony meteorites. Meteorites also fall on other solar system bodies. Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity found the first meteorite of any type on another planet when it discovered an iron-nickel meteorite about the size of a basketball on Mars in 2005, and then found a much larger and heavier iron-nickel meteorite in 2009 in the same region. In all, Opportunity has discovered six meteorites during its travels on Mars.
Where Meteorites are Found
More than 50,000 meteorites have been found on Earth. Of these, 99.8 percent come from asteroids. Asteroids and the meteorites that fall to Earth are not pieces of a planet that broke apart, but instead are the original diverse materials from which the planets formed. The remaining 0.2 percent of meteorites is split roughly equally between meteorites from Mars and the moon. The over 60 known Martian meteorites were blasted off Mars by meteoroid impacts. All are igneous rocks crystallized from magma. The rocks are very much like Earth rocks with some distinctive compositions that indicate Martian origin. The nearly 80 lunar meteorites are similar in mineralogy and composition to Apollo mission moon rocks, but distinct enough to show that they have come from other parts of the moon. Studies of lunar and Martian meteorites complement studies of Apollo Moon rocks and the robotic exploration of Mars.
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Sources:
Watch for Taurid fireballs! EarthSky.org, Bruce McClure in Tonight, November 2, 2018, amsmeteors.org, Robert Lunsford, Nov. 2, 2018
Meteor Activity Outlook for November 3-9, 2018, Meteors and Meteorites, solarsystem.nasa.gov, Lonnie Shekhtman, Elizabeth Landau and Celest Hoang, Dec. 5, 2017
