Meteor procession

Oil painting by Frederic Edwin Church, The 1860 Great Meteor

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: ^[1]

• 18 August 1783 Great Meteor ^{[1] [2]} (Passed over Blair Atholl, the east coast of southern Scotland and England and the English Channel, breaking up over southern France or northern Italy). ^[3]
• 20 July 1860 Great Meteor; sighted over North America, believed by Olson to be the event referred to in Walt Whitman's poem Year of Meteors, 1859–60 ^{[4] [5]}
• 21 December 1876 Great Meteor; sighted over Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania ^{[6] [7] [8]}
• 9 February 1913 Great Meteor Procession; a chain of slow, large meteors moving from northwest to southeast, sighted over North America, particularly in Canada, the North Atlantic and the Tropical South Atlantic

See also

• 1972 Great Daylight Fireball  – Atmospheric phenomenon
• Bolide  – Extremely bright meteor
• Comet breakup  – Natural object in space that releases gas
• Forensic astronomy  – Study of past celestial appearances
• Green fireballs  – Unidentified flying objects
• List of Earth-crossing asteroids
• Meteor shower  – Celestial event caused by streams of meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere
• Unidentified flying object  – Airborne entity that has not been identified or explained

References

1. Falk, Dan (1 June 2010). "Forensic astronomer solves Walt Whitman mystery: CultureLab (blog)". New Scientist . Archived from the original on 21 March 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
2. "Notes and Queries". Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada . 8: 221–222. June 1914. Bibcode:1914JRASC...8..221. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
3. Beech, M. (1989). "The Great Meteor of 18 August 1783". Journal of the British Astronomical Association . 99 (3): 103. Bibcode:1989JBAA...99..130B.
4. "Forensic astronomer solves Walt Whitman mystery". New Scientist . 1 June 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
5. "150-year-old meteor mystery solved". MSNBC. 2 June 2010. Archived from the original on 5 June 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
6. Herschel, Alexander Stewart (1878). "Observations of luminous meteors". Report of the forty-seventh meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science: Held at Plymouth in August 1877. John Murray. pp. 149–153.
7. MARK BOSTICK (18 February 2006). "Rochester Meteorite - NPA 12-22-1876 - Decatur, Il". www.meteorite-list-archives.com. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
8. "THE METEOR". www.nytimes.com. 28 December 1876. Retrieved 18 August 2025.

External links

• Meteors, Meteoroids, and Meteorites