Loud boom and flash of light as fireball explodes in the skies of Scotland

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What was this strong flash of light and loud rumbling boom in the skies over the north east of Scotland on February 29, 2016?

The mysterious light appeared at around 7pm on Monday across the Highlands, Aberdeenshire and Perth.

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This meteor was captured over Loch Ness by Tourist guide John Alasdair Macdonald on March 16, 2015 via BBC

People reports shaking houses, rattling windows. There were neither lightning nor thunderstorms in the area at the time of the explosion.

Here a few tweets from residents across the area:

This is most probably a meteor exploding in the sky as shown in this dash cam video by ‎Jenni Morrison posted on the Facebook Group Scotland from the Roadside

Here the video file from Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/blueyejac/videos/10206992006373402/

or the same from Youtube:

Here some other videos:

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6 Comments

  1. Comment:
    Periodic comet showers and planet X
    Authors:
    Whitmire, D. P.; Matese, J. J.
    Affiliation:
    AA(Southwestern Louisiana, University, Lafayette, LA), AB(Southwestern Louisiana, University, Lafayette, LA)
    Publication:
    Nature (ISSN 0028-0836), vol. 313, Jan. 3, 1985, p. 36-38. (Nature Homepage)
    Publication Date:
    01/1985
    Category:
    Astronomy; Comets
    Origin:
    STI
    NASA/STI Keywords:
    Comets, Meteoroid Showers, Planetology, Solar System, Astronomical Models, Diffusion Theory, Impact, Periodic Variations
    LPI Keywords:
    COMETS, PLANET X, ORBITS, SHORT-PERIOD COMETS, CELESTIAL MECHANICS, MOTION, ORIGIN, PERIODICITY, CRATERING, PERTURBATIONS, CALCULATIONS
    DOI:
    10.1038/313036a0
    Bibliographic Code:
    1985Natur.313…36W
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985Natur.313…36W

  2. Comment:
    Title:
    Periodic Comet Showers, Mass Extinctions, and the Galaxy
    Authors:
    Rampino, M. R.; Stothers, R. B.
    Affiliation:
    AA(NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies), AB(NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies)
    Publication:
    Catastrophic Events and Mass Extinctions: Impacts and Beyond, p. 175
    Publication Date:
    01/2000
    Category:
    Astrophysics
    Origin:
    STI
    NASA/STI Keywords:
    Comets, Periodic Variations, Solar System, Disk Galaxies, Extinction, Asteroids, Oort Cloud, Gravitational Fields, Geology
    Bibliographic Code:
    2000cem..conf..175R

    Abstract
    Geologic data on mass extinctions of life and evidence of large impacts on the Earth are thus far consistent with a quasi-periodic modulation of the flux of Oort cloud comets. Impacts of large comets and asteroids are capable of causing mass extinction of species, and the records of large impact craters and mass show a correlation. Impacts and extinctions display periods in the range of approximately 31 +/- 5 m.y., depending on dating methods, published time scales, length of record, and number of events analyzed. Statistical studies show that observed differences in the formal periodicity of extinctions and craters are to be expected, taking into consideration problems in dating and the likelihood that both records would be mixtures of periodic and random events. These results could be explained by quasi-periodic showers of Oort Cloud comets with a similar cycle. The best candidate for a pacemaker for comet showers is the Sun’s vertical oscillation through the plane of the Galaxy, with a half-period over the last 250 million years in the same range. We originally suggested that the probability of encounters with molecular clouds that could perturb the Oort comet cloud and cause comet showers is modulated by the Sun’s vertical motion through the galactic disk. Tidal forces produced by the overall gravitational field of the Galaxy can also cause perturbations of cometary orbits. Since these forces vary with the changing position of the solar system in the Galaxy, they provide a mechanism for the periodic variation in the flux of Oort cloud comets into the inner solar system. The cycle time and degree of modulation depend critically on the mass distribution in the galactic disk. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000cem..conf..175R

  3. Comment:Page
    Title: Nemesis reconsidered ( notice IT SAYS 99 PERCENT CONFIDENCE? YES!!! AND they reintroduced this one as well)
    Authors:
    Melott, Adrian L.; Bambach, Richard K.
    Affiliation:
    AA(Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA), AB(Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, MRC 121, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA)
    Publication:
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Volume 407, Issue 1, pp. L99-L102. (MNRAS Homepage)
    Publication Date:
    09/2010
    Origin:
    WILEY
    Astronomy Keywords:
    astrobiology, Oort Cloud, planets and satellites: general, binaries: general
    Abstract Copyright:
    (c) Journal compilation © 2010 RAS
    DOI:
    10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00913.x
    Bibliographic Code:
    2010MNRAS.407L..99M

    Abstract
    The hypothesis of a companion object (Nemesis) orbiting the Sun was motivated by the claim of a terrestrial extinction periodicity, thought to be mediated by comet showers. The orbit of a distant companion to the Sun is expected to be perturbed by the Galactic tidal field and encounters with passing stars, which will induce variation in the period. We examine the evidence for the previously proposed periodicity, using two modern, greatly improved paleontological data sets of fossil biodiversity. We find that there is a narrow peak at 27 Myr in the cross-spectrum of extinction intensity time series between these independent data sets. This periodicity extends over a time period nearly twice that for which it was originally noted. An excess of extinction events is associated with this periodicity at 99 per cent confidence. In this sense we confirm the originally noted feature in the time series for extinction. However, we find that it displays extremely regular timing for about 0.5 Gyr. The regularity of the timing compared with earlier calculations of orbital perturbation would seem to exclude the Nemesis hypothesis as a causal factor.
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010MNRAS.407L..99M

  4. Comment:SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service( they re-introduced this 2016)

    Title:
    Periodic mass extinctions and the Planet X model reconsidered

    Authors:
    Whitmire, Daniel P.
    Affiliation:
    AA(Department of Mathematics, The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA dpwhitmi@uark.edu)
    Publication:
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Volume 455, Issue 1, p.L114-L117 (MNRAS Homepage)
    Publication Date:
    01/2016
    Origin:
    OUP
    Astronomy Keywords:
    astrobiology, comets: general, Kuiper belt: general, Earth
    Abstract Copyright:
    2015 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
    DOI:
    10.1093/mnrasl/slv157
    Bibliographic Code:
    2016MNRAS.455L.114W

    Abstract
    The 27 Myr period in the fossil extinction record has been confirmed in modern data bases dating back 500 Myr, which is twice the time interval of the original analysis from 30 years ago. The surprising regularity of this period has been used to reject the Nemesis model. A second model based on the Sun’s vertical Galactic oscillations has been challenged on the basis of an inconsistency in period and phasing. The third astronomical model originally proposed to explain the periodicity is the Planet X model in which the period is associated with the perihelion precession of the inclined orbit of a trans-Neptunian planet. Recently, and unrelated to mass extinctions, a trans-Neptunian super-Earth planet has been proposed to explain the observation that the inner Oort cloud objects Sedna and 2012VP113 have perihelia that lie near the ecliptic plane. In this Letter, we reconsider the Planet X model in light of the confluence of the modern palaeontological and outer Solar system dynamical evidence

  5. There has been a concept called the ”Jupiter barrier” where giant planets such as Jupiter protect the Earth from cometary bombardments (e.g. [10,11]). Our study partially validates this hypothesis, showing that the planetary barrier actually works when the incoming OCNC flux is nearly planar as in the era (a). The main barrier is composed by Saturn with an aid by Jupiter, making OCNCs’ perihelia stick around Saturn’s orbit. Once the comet cloud has become isotropic as in the era (b), OCNCs come from almost any directions, and the barrier no longer works. This is just the situation in the current solar system.

    Dynamical lifetime of the new Oort Cloud comets under planetary perturbations

    Authors:
    Ito, T.; Higuchi, A.
    Affiliation:
    AA(Center for Computational Astrophysics, National Astronomical Observatory, Tokyo, Japan) AB(Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan)
    Publication:
    Asteroids, Comets, Meteors 2014. Proceedings of the conference held 30 June – 4 July, 2014 in Helsinki, Finland. Edited by K. Muinonen et al.
    Publication Date:
    07/2014
    Origin:
    AUTHOR
    Bibliographic Code:
    2014acm..conf..229I

    Abstract
    Nearly-isotropic comets with very long orbital period are supposed to come from the Oort Cloud. Recent observational and theoretical studies have greatly revealed the dynamical nature of this cloud and its evolutional history, but many issues are yet to be known. Our goal is to trace the dynamical evolution of the Oort Cloud new comets (OCNCs) produced by an evolving comet cloud, hopefully estimating the fraction of OCNCs embedded in the current populations of the solar system small bodies. We combine two models to follow the dynamical evolution of OCNCs beginning from their production until their ejection out of the solar system, obtaining statistics of the dynamical lifetime of OCNCs: The first model is a semi-analytical one about the OCNC production in an evolving comet cloud under the perturbation of the galactic tide and stellar encounters. The second model numerically deals with planetary perturbation over OCNCs’ dynamics in planetary region. The main results of the present study are: (1) Typical dynamical lifetime of OCNCs in our models turned out to be O(10^7) years. Once entering into the planetary region, most OCNCs stay there just for this timespan, then get ejected out of the solar system on hyperbolic orbits. (2) While average orbital inclination of OCNCs is small, the so-called ”planet barrier” works rather effectively, preventing some OCNCs from penetrating into the terrestrial planetary region.
    Models. Recently a series of detailed dynamical studies with similar scientific objects to ours are published [1-3]. Our present study is an extension of our own independent project [4], using a pair of dynamical models. The first model is for the evolving Oort Cloud that produces OCNCs along its evolution [5,6]. The model initially starts from a planar planetesimal disk, which evolves into a three- dimensional, nearly isotropic shape over a timespan of Gyr under the perturbation by the galactic tide and stellar encounters. This model is largely analytical in order to reduce the amount of computation. The second one is a numerical model for incorporating planetary perturbation from the major seven planets except Mercury, similar to the framework of our previous studies [7,8]. It receives OCNCs from the first model, and traces the orbital evolution of the comets up to 500 Myr until they get ejected out of the solar system by being scattered away. The second model does not include the galactic tide or stellar perturbation. For further reduction of computation amount, we assume that OCNCs go along their Keplerian orbits beyond r = 800 au without any perturbations. The effect of the galactic tide that OCNCs would have during this period is separately evaluated using a perturbation function that includes the galactic tide used in the first model.

    Results. We selected two different eras among the Oort Cloud history: (a) the initial 1 Gyr while the comet cloud is still nearly planar with a high OCNC production rate, and (b) the period t =4-5 Gyr when the comet cloud is almost in an isotropic shape with nearly constant supply of OCNCs. It turned out that most of the OCNCs got scattered away by the four giant planets (i.e being ejected out of the system with r > 800 au and e > 1, or aphelion distance becoming larger than Q >2 × 10^5 au) with a typical timespan of O(10^7) years in the planetary region. This timescale is roughly consistent with an analytical estimate in [9]. Also, this timescale does not strongly dependent on which era we choose, as the range of OCNC’s semimajor axis is similar to each other. To get an estimate as to which planet has the largest dynamical influence on the fate of OCNCs, we calculated the number of planetary encounters defined by OCNC’s close approaches within 500 × scatter radius of planets, r_{s} (r_{s} is a typical distance when a massless body’s orbit gets bent 90 degrees by scattering. It is proportional to (relative velocity){}^{-2}). A simple analysis shows that Jupiter and Saturn play a dominant role on scattering OCNCs away from the system.

    There has been a concept called the ”Jupiter barrier” where giant planets such as Jupiter protect the Earth from cometary bombardments (e.g. [10,11]). Our study partially validates this hypothesis, showing that the planetary barrier actually works when the incoming OCNC flux is nearly planar as in the era (a). The main barrier is composed by Saturn with an aid by Jupiter, making OCNCs’ perihelia stick around Saturn’s orbit. Once the comet cloud has become isotropic as in the era (b), OCNCs come from almost any directions, and the barrier no longer works. This is just the situation in the current solar system.
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014acm..conf..229I

    ( I will be putting up articles and documents’ from NASA, SMITHSONIAN, AND HARVARD’S DATABASES SHOWING’ they know’ FOR A FACT’ that meteors, asteroids, and comet’s HAVE BEEN PERTURBED’ ( by ‘ something’ that they aren’t sure of) and it HAS AND ‘ is’ PUTTING EARTH AT RISK )

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