Sigh. It was a time-lapse on facebook and it showed a light plummeting to the earth at the end. I really shouldn’t comment on facebook at all. It just gets me in trouble. But really. Some people thought it was the “green comet”. Others thought it was an airplane landing. Or the ISS.

Comet? Nope. Because of a lot of ancient art, people seem to think when a comet comes by you can walk outside your house and look up to see a spectacular sight in the sky. A big star-like object with a brilliant tail. Guess what? We went to Crazy Old Florida during the last orbit of Halley’s Comet. In order to see the comet, the GG got up ultra early many days and drove miles out into the interior, where he set up his telescope. That was the only way he could see the comet. Not to mention that when you view a comet through a telescope, you don’t see a big star-like object with a brilliant tail whizzing by. You see a very small object in the sky. It will not be apparently moving and you MAY be able to see a sort of tail. Airliner? Nope. No airports near there. And the ISS (another guess) doesn’t LAND.

A few years ago (pre-COVID) it was this time of year and we were having dinner here at the Landfill with our mouse and there was a thunder-like sound and maybe even a flash of light. We occasionally have thundersnow here but it was a cloudless night so no snow, right? As it turned out, a meteorite crashed onto an iced-over lake somewhere in the general area. It happened to be my birthday that day and that made it one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. What a trip! (Today is not my birthday.)

I wish I hadn’t commented because I got the usual crapola from the original poster. But really. Most commenters seemed to have no clue about y’know SCIENCE?

The pic is our Softy Beanbag and her twin, acquired after much searching by the GG.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2023 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.