The 1919 Michigan Event refers to a possible meteor air burst on the evening of November 26, 1919, over far northern Indiana and southern Michigan in the United States. [1]
The 1919 Michigan Event refers to a possible meteor air burst on the evening of November 26, 1919, over far northern Indiana and southern Michigan in the United States. [1]
Shortly before 8:00 pm (local time) on November 26, 1919, dozens of eyewitnesses throughout northern Indiana and southern Michigan reported seeing a "brilliant meteor" traveling westward toward Lake Michigan; the meteor was widely reported as both extremely colorful and producing audible sounds. [2] The meteor was also sighted in more distant locations, including Newberry, Michigan, within the state's Upper Peninsula, Lucknow, Ontario, and across Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [3] The shockwave from the meteor created earthquake-like tremors which caused damage to telephone lines, telegraph lines, and electrical infrastructure. [4]
William Herbert Hobbs recorded this account from Leroy Milhan, from Centreville, Michigan: [1] [4]
"Very bright-yellowish light suffused the clouds and seemingly every particle of cold, misty rain that was falling. The road, trees, houses, and even ourselves were bathed in a blinding phosphorescent-like glow which had its center in a bright streak in the sky above us. It passed over us toward the west. Immediately came a muffled report or jar that shook houses and the very earth like an earthquake."
Coast Guard stations on the eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan reported the following: [1]
"A brilliant meteor was scene by watchmen at the Coast Guard stations at Ludington and Point Sable at 7:45 P.M. on the twenty-sixth. It was first seen almost overhead, whence it moved to the south, leaving a trail of blue. When near the southern horizon, and apparently along the lake shore, it burst like a sky-rocket into many pieces, which were colored blue, red, green, and yellow and otherwise, and fell to the ground. A swishing was heard as the meteor passed through the air; no explosion and no shock were felt."
Hobbs recorded this account from L. L. Hamilton from Decatur, Michigan, who was driving west of Dowagiac, Michigan: [1]
"I was frightened by a white light touched with green and by flashes that were at least ten or fifteen seconds displayed. A big ball of fire which looked as big as a balloon disappeared in the woods in front of me. When this occurred, I pulled up on the clutch, and stopped. It seemed as thought I was stunned and could not stir. I did not hear a very loud sound – only a jar – as my engine was running. I regained my senses, the light disappeared, and I resumed my journey. I could not see anything in the woods, but noticed an odor like sulphur burning...all was lighted up like day in the direction of the woods for a few seconds, and feeling sure my machine was on fire, I made an attempt to get out and see."
Newspaper accounts in the following days widely quoted a Grand Haven, Michigan lighthouse keeper, who claimed that the meteor impacted Lake Michigan. [5] A subsequent analysis by geologist William Herbert Hobbs, published by the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, suggested that these reports may have been exaggerated. [1] [6] Hobbs interviewed witnesses throughout Michigan and northern Indiana and determined that the majority of the meteor likely exploded in the air near Pokagon, Michigan. While Hobbs was initially optimistic about finding fragments of the meteor based on his analysis of its flight path, none were ever located. [7]
A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater.
The Tunguska event was an approximately 12-megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate, Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908. The explosion over the sparsely populated East Siberian taiga flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest, and eyewitness reports suggest that at least three people may have died in the event. The explosion is generally attributed to a meteor air burst: the atmospheric explosion of a stony asteroid about 50–60 metres in size. The asteroid approached from the east-south-east, and probably with a relatively high speed of about 27 km/s (60,000 mph). Though it is classified as an impact event, the object is thought to have exploded at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres rather than having hit the surface of the Earth, leaving no impact crater.
A meteoroid is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are distinguished as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than meteoroids are classified as micrometeoroids or space dust. Most are fragments from comets or asteroids, whereas others are collision impact debris ejected from bodies such as the Moon or Mars.
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all of them disintegrate and never hit the Earth's surface. Very intense or unusual meteor showers are known as meteor outbursts and meteor storms, which produce at least 1,000 meteors an hour, most notably from the Leonids. The Meteor Data Centre lists over 900 suspected meteor showers of which about 100 are well established. Several organizations point to viewing opportunities on the Internet. NASA maintains a daily map of active meteor showers.
The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle. The meteors are called the Perseids because they appear from the general direction of the constellation Perseus and in more modern times have a radiant bordering on Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis.
The Kecksburg UFO incident occurred on December 9, 1965, at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, United States, when a fireball was reported by citizens of six U.S. states and Canada over Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Astronomers said it was likely to have been a meteor bolide burning up in the atmosphere and descending at a steep angle. NASA released a statement in 2005 reporting that experts had examined fragments from the area and determined they were from a Soviet satellite, but that records of their findings were lost in 1987. NASA responded to court orders and Freedom of Information Act requests to search for the records. The incident gained wide notoriety in popular culture and ufology, with speculation ranging from extraterrestrial craft to debris from the Soviet space probe Kosmos 96, and is often called "Pennsylvania's Roswell".
3200 Phaethon, provisionally designated 1983 TB, is an active Apollo asteroid with an orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid. For this reason, it was named after the Greek myth of Phaëthon, son of the sun god Helios. It is 5.8 km (3.6 mi) in diameter and is the parent body of the Geminids meteor shower of mid-December. With an observation arc of 35+ years, it has a very well determined orbit. The 2017 Earth approach distance of about 10 million km was known with an accuracy of ±700 m.
Biela's Comet or Comet Biela was a periodic Jupiter-family comet first recorded in 1772 by Montaigne and Messier and finally identified as periodic in 1826 by Wilhelm von Biela. It was subsequently observed to split in two and has not been seen since 1852. As a result, it is currently considered to have been destroyed, although remnants appeared to have survived for some time as a meteor shower, the Andromedids.
Star jelly is a gelatinous substance sometimes found on grass and less commonly on the branches of trees. According to folklore, it is deposited on the Earth during meteor showers. It is described as a translucent or grayish-white gelatin that tends to evaporate shortly after having "fallen". Explanations have ranged from it being the remains of frogs, toads, or worms, to the byproducts of cyanobacteria, to being the fruiting bodies of jelly fungi or masses of amoeba called slime molds. Nonbiological origins proposed for instances of "star jelly" have included byproducts from industrial production or waste management. Reports of the substance date back to the 14th century and have continued to the present.
The Taurids are an annual meteor shower, associated with the comet Encke. The Taurids are actually two separate showers, with a Southern and a Northern component. The Southern Taurids originated from Comet Encke, while the Northern Taurids originated from the asteroid 2004 TG10, possibly a large fragment of Encke due to its similar orbital parameters. They are named after their radiant point in the constellation Taurus, where they are seen to come from in the sky. Because of their occurrence in late October and early November, they are also called Halloween fireballs.
William Herbert Hobbs, Ph.D. was an American geologist.
The Andromedids meteor shower is associated with Biela's Comet, the showers occurring as Earth passes through old streams left by the comet's tail. The comet was observed to have broken up by 1846; further drift of the pieces by 1852 suggested the moment of breakup was in either 1842 or early 1843, when the comet was near Jupiter. The breakup led to particularly spectacular showers in subsequent cycles.
Ruth Duckworth was a modernist sculptor who specialized in ceramics, she worked in stoneware, porcelain, and bronze. Her sculptures are mostly untitled. She is best known for Clouds over Lake Michigan, a wall sculpture.
A meteor air burst is a type of air burst in which a meteor explodes after entering a planetary body's atmosphere. This fate leads them to be called fireballs or bolides, with the brightest air bursts known as superbolides. Such meteoroids were originally asteroids and comets of a few to several tens of meters in diameter. This separates them from the much smaller and far more common "shooting stars", that usually burn up quickly upon atmospheric entry.
A meteor procession occurs when an Earth-grazing meteor breaks apart, and the fragments travel across the sky in the same path. According to physicist Donald Olson, only four occurrences are known:
On February 9, 1913, a significant meteoric phenomenon was reported from locations across Canada, northeastern United States, Bermuda, and from many ships at sea as far south as Brazil, giving a total recorded ground track of over 11,000 km, and becoming known as the Great Meteor Procession of 1913. The meteors were particularly unusual in that there was no apparent radiant, the point in the sky from which meteors usually appear to originate. The observations were analysed in detail, later the same year, by the astronomer Clarence Chant, leading him to conclude that as all accounts were positioned along a great circle arc, the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
The Chelyabinsk meteor was a superbolide that entered Earth's atmosphere over the southern Ural region in Russia on 15 February 2013 at about 09:20 YEKT. It was caused by an approximately 18 m (59 ft) diameter, 9,100-tonne (10,000-short-ton) near-Earth asteroid that entered the atmosphere at a shallow 18.3 ± 0.4 degree angle with a speed relative to Earth of 19.16 ± 0.15 kilometres per second. The light from the meteor was briefly brighter than the Sun, visible as far as 100 km (60 mi) away. It was observed in a wide area of the region and in neighbouring republics. Some eyewitnesses also reported feeling intense heat from the fireball.
Fiammetta Wilson was a British astronomer elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1916.
ʻOumuamua is the first interstellar object detected passing through the Solar System. Formally designated 1I/2017 U1, it was discovered by Robert Weryk using the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakalā Observatory, Hawaii, on 19 October 2017, approximately 40 days after it passed its closest point to the Sun on 9 September. When it was first observed, it was about 33 million km from Earth and already heading away from the Sun.
The Galileo Project is an international scientific research project to systematically search for extraterrestrial intelligence or extraterrestrial technology on and near Earth and to identify the nature of anomalous Unidentified Flying Objects/Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UFOs/UAP).