Astronomy Picture of the Day - An Unusual Event Over South Wales

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ^ | October 1, 2003 | Jon Burnett

[anymouse]

An Unusual Event Over South Wales

Credit & Copyright: Jon Burnett

Explanation: Jon Burnett, a teenager from South Wales, UK, was photographing some friends skateboarding last week when the sky did something very strange. By diverting his camera, he was able to document this rare sky event and capture one of the more spectacular sky images yet recorded. Roughly one minute later, he took another picture of the dispersing trial. What is it? Experts disagree. The first guess was a sofa-sized rock that exploded as a daytime fireball, but perhaps a better hypthesis is an unusual airplane contrail reflecting the setting Sun. Bright fireballs occur over someplace on Earth nearly every day. A separate bolide, likely even more dramatic, struck India only a few days ago.

[anymouse]

Whoa dude, that's way knarly! :)

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[anymouse]

Space ping.

[Sloth]

The first guess was a sofa-sized rock that exploded as a daytime fireball, but perhaps a better hypthesis is an unusual airplane contrail reflecting the setting Sun. Bright fireballs occur over someplace on Earth nearly every day.

It would seem the difference between these two possibilities would be obvious to the observer. Either it was a contrail or it wasn't.

[Atlas Sneezed]

That's no contrail!

[Leroy S. Mort]

Just Wesley Clark in his Time Machine. Move along...

[Major_Risktaker]

That's no contrail!

Hmmm...Looks like the McClintock Campaign going down in flames.

[Ciexyz]

Bump for the beautiful country of Wales.

[MinuteGal]

Hey, this would make a great ZOT photo for the mods to use when they've worn out all those lightning pictures.

Leni

[Dec31,1999]

It's the end of the world!

[Husker24]

No Kidding, if that was a contrail, that jet was in BIG trouble.

[Coffee_drinker]

w.clarks time machine, freepers gota be the funniest
people on the net! ROFL

cd

[Fledermaus]

Col. Steve Austin's experimental plane exploded while trying to land..."we can rebuild him, we have the technology..."

[blam]

In-coming!

[Stars N Stripes]

You need to look at the second picture, it's definitely the suns rays reflecting off a contrail. We see this alot in So. Calif. when they launch rockets from Vandenberg AFB.

[Centurion2000]

Bill Clinton's legacy was spotted over South Wales today.

[Centurion2000]

You need to look at the second picture, it's definitely the suns rays reflecting off a contrail.

BS .... if it was a contail ... where's the plane ?

[Stars N Stripes]

De plane de plane..... it's flown off to Fantasy Island!

[al baby]

100 or so miles away

[John H K]

BS .... if it was a contail ... where's the plane ?

Given proper temperature/humidity conditions a contrail will persist for HOURS after the plane that made it is gone; and it actually isn't even all that uncommon for that to happen.

The basic premise of the "Chemtrail" idiocy which, fortunately, seems to have died, is the big lie that all normal contrails disperse instantly.