🌠 I saw a fireball!
TLDR;
Image by stanislao d’ambrosio
Just like the title mentions, after years of trying to observe astronomical events, watching the night sky for comets, shooting stars I finally saw a fireball!
Fireball? What is that?
Technically a fireball is an especially bright meteor that is brighter than the planet Venus (magnitude of >=-3).
American Meteor Society has a beautiful infographic explaining the nuances. Meteor Terminology
Big deal?
Alright so how rare is it to sight NEO (Near Earth Objects) in the sky? Pretty rare but not impossible especially if you have the right gear, the right circumstances and a boat load of luck and timing.
The event itself is not rare. Space as you might have guessed is a huge place and the number of objects flying close to Earth at any given time both man made and otherwise are pretty high too.
GIven this information, objects larger than 1mm can produce streaks of light as they interact with the Earth’s atmosphere. When we look up at the sky as most people do, it is probably in less than ideal conditions, surrounded by buildings, trees, cloud cover, lots of light pollution especially in cities and more. And for the untrained eye, unless you are looking for something, chances are pretty low for you to see or even recognize an event like that.
Coming to how big the Earth is, ie. almost 90% of it is uninhabited. Which means any event that is not in the part of sky that we can see is out of the question. Then, these events don’t exclusively occur at night, for obvious reasons, and the few hours per day that a person spends at night looking at the sky, the chances are, let’s say, pretty slim overall, however you wish to cut the pie.
So it is not because the event itself is rare but that most people are not in ideal conditions or times to witness them.
Okay so BIG DEAL. Now what?
If you found yourself at the right place at the right time to see a thing in the sky and are not sure what it is, it’s probably not a UAP an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (formerly UFO).
If you saw it, chances are somebody else saw it too. Especially if the sighting is over a populated area. The responsible thing to do is:
- Determine your position relative to the sighting, approximate altitude, prominent landmark in the sky etc.
- Take a note of the visual signature like color, duration, trail characteristics.
- Finally report the event at Report a Fireball if that was hard, check out the simplified form. Alternatively try to report it here.
Once you do the responsible thing as mentioned above (right after you stop jumping up and down in excitement) congratulations, for what you witnessed was a once in a lifetime event for most people.
What did I see?
Okay, I was looking out at the night sky like I do when I get some alone time. The sound of an airplane broke the silence of the night and I glanced over to that direction. After shifting my eyes back and forth, I saw something bright in the corner of my eye.
Looking over to the direction I focused my vision on a bright flaming ball in the sky that was a mix of greenish blue core with an orange outline that had a tail that was yellowish and fragmented. It lasted for like 2-3 seconds, wasn’t accompaniied by any sounds, but it was clearly visible in the backdrop of the somewhat clear night sky.
Overwhelmed with excitement I let out a loud laugh and proceeded to look at my position relative to what I saw. Lost for an explanation I started ruling out common false positives and immediately pinged my friend who works in IMD for some answers.
Turns out he and a few of his friends saw the same thing. As instructed I reported this sighting on the website of IMO. After a few days the reports of this particular sighting started to come in and I was relieved to know that this was not my imagination.
Conclusion
Stoked. I thought about all the nights I spent on the roof of my house to catch a glimpse of the marvels in the sky. The first experience I had was of capturing a faint glimpse of the Milky Way galaxy while trying to capture star trails. Ever since, I hoped to witness something spectacular. A fireball was not on the list. But having seen one, I can only think of a verse from the Bible:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1