Astronomy:Meteor procession

Short description: Meteor that breaks apart into fragments travelling in the same direction

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:

• 18 August 1783 Great Meteor (Passed over Blair Atholl, the east coast of southern Scotland and England and the English Channel, breaking up over southern France or northern Italy).
• 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
• 21 December 1876 Great Meteor; sighted over Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania
• 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

• Astronomy:1972 Great Daylight Fireball – Atmospheric phenomenon
• Astronomy:Bolide
• Astronomy:Forensic astronomy – Study of past celestial appearances
• Unsolved:Green fireballs – Unidentified flying objects
• Astronomy:List of Earth-crossing asteroids – None
• Astronomy:Meteor shower – Celestial event caused by streams of meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere
• Unsolved:Unidentified flying object – Unusual phenomenon in the sky that is not readily identifiable

External links

• Meteors, Meteoroids, and Meteorites