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SOLAR WIND: For the fourth day in a row, a high-speed solar wind stream is blowing past Earth. Sky watchers in Alaska and Canada should remain alert for auroras.
FIREBALL SIGHTINGS: On. Nov. 2nd, a fireball streaked over El Paso, Texas, and when it exploded in mid-air it was brighter than a full moon. Jim Gamble recorded the event using a low-light video camera:
Click to view a full-sized movie.
Gamble's camera is one of many in the Sandia Meteor Detection Network. Equipped with a fisheye lens, it monitors the whole sky every night. "I've been doing this for five years now," says Gamble, "and there seems to be a marked increase in fireball activity [in the fall] of this year as compared to previous years."
EXTRA: Gamble's camera caught another fireball on Nov. 5th: movie.
The source of these fireballs may be the Taurid meteor shower, which peaks between Nov. 5th and 12th. So keep an eye on the sky. You might see something bright and wonderful: full story.
SUNSET SCENE: Anyone witnessing this scene in the sunset skies of Colorado yesterday might have done a double-take:
A crescent-shaped meteor? No, it's just the moon aligned by chance with an airplane's contrail. The bright "star" nearby is Venus. Because Venus and the moon were close together on Nov. 5th, lots of people were looking in their direction. Ginger Mayfield was one of them, and she snapped the picture, above.
more images: from Stefan Seip of Stuttgart, Germany; a daytime shot from Becky Ramotowski of Tijeras, New Mexico; from David Williams of Monrovia, Maryland; from Ron Wayman of Tampa, Florida;