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NEW ENGLAND METEOR: A brilliant green fireball streaked over New England on Sunday, April 24th, at about 8 pm EDT. What was it? Probably a small asteroid, sofa-sized or so, breaking up in Earth's atmosphere. Such space rocks hit Earth frequently, but they are seldom observed because they appear, e.g., during the day or over uninhabited ocean. This one disintegrated over a densely populated area during the dark of evening while many people were awake to see it.
Contrary to some reports, the fireball was not a Lyrid meteor. The radiant of the Lyrid meteor shower was below the horizon at the time. Nor was it the Soyuz space capsule returning to Earth from the International Space Station. The Soyuz landed in Asia about three hours before the fireball appeared.
Did you see this event? Please tell us about it.
LUNAR ECLIPSE: On Sunday morning, April 24th, the full Moon glided through the outer fringes of Earth's shadow, resulting in a "penumbral lunar eclipse." This is what it looked like:
Image credit: Matt Wastell of Brisbane, Australia.
The shadowy darkening across the top of the Moon was, at best, subtle. Onlookers who didn't know an eclipse was in progress might not have noticed. The view from the Moon, on the other hand, was spectacular.
April 24th Lunar Eclipse Gallery
RAINBOWS IN THE NIGHT: You've seen rainbows. They appear after rain storms when sunlight bounces in and out of misty water droplets. The droplets act like prisms, dividing bright white sunbeams into colorful arcs. But have you ever seen a rainbow after dark? Photographer J. Paul Longchamp did this weekend in Tahiti:
Rainbows require a source of light and some water droplets. In this case, the light came from the full Moon, with moist island air providing the prismatic droplets. The moon is almost full tonight. If it's humid where you live, watch out for rainbows in the night.
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