Near-Earth objects and close calls

[Gawan]

Looks like a meteorite from the Houston event crashed into someone's house.

View attachment 117286

That's then a second event in a fairly short time when a meteor hit a roof. At the beginning of March in Germany and now in the US. Recently when I was out at night in Germany last week, I also suddenly saw a considerable flash, but no sonic boom was heard. The sky was almost cloudless, and no thunderstorm was near.

 

[unkl brws]

I just saw this on the American Meteor Society FB page today about a large fireball over California.

Over 200 eye-witnesses reported a large fireball with booms over central California. All signs point to another meteorite fall. That's the 3rd one in 6 days counting Houston TX and Ohio last week.
https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/.../imo_view/event/2026/2016
The fireball was captured on an AllSky7 station hosted by Peter Jenniskens and Jim Albers in Mountain View CA.

 

[Olivierlejardinier]

It sure looks busy up there.

Here is our second reported meteor of the evening which fell around 9:31 pm EDT here on 3/23/26. This meteor fell from south to north towards central Michigan, as captured looking north from both our Jan's Professional Dry Cleaners, Inc camera in Frankenmuth, and our A & S Garage Llc camera in Dundee.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2036280061121179986

In the post description, Grok reports a link between recent fireballs and the dust trail of comet 3I/ATLAS:

This sighting aligns with elevated meteor activity in March 2026, driven by Earth passing through the dust trail of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which peaked near Earth in December 2025 and has produced fireballs across the US, including Ohio (March 17, 7-ton event with sonic booms) and Texas.

Upon asking more about this:

We don't have a definitive, peer-reviewed confirmation yet specifically tying this March 23, 2026, Michigan fireball.
.../...
Earth is currently crossing that exact path: In March 2026, Earth's position in its orbit places it where models predict we should encounter lingering dust from 3I/ATLAS's 2025 passage (roughly 4–6 months after the comet's perihelion and close approach). This is the same principle behind annual meteor showers (e.g., Perseids from comet Swift-Tuttle), except this is a one-time, non-repeating "stream" from a hyperbolic interstellar visitor. Multiple observers and amateur analysts have noted the timing coincidence with the recent uptick in bright fireballs across the U.S.

 

[Gaby]

In the post description, Grok reports a link between recent fireballs and the dust trail of comet 3I/ATLAS:

If you see where comet 3IAtlas is right now and the size of it, nobody with two neurons firing will claim the above. It's IDIOTIC. It doesn't have the gravitational pull to put up this show, and it's so far away it may as well be on the other side of the Universe. Obviously, since people don't even know basics nor the distances involved, they can be lead to believe anything.

That is the kind of nonsense the Stephan Burns was saying. In Spanish we call this "verguenza ajena". That is, I feel the shame that he should have felt in making that claim. You just have to avoid thinking with a hammer and you're a candidate for cointelpro. Like I said here about the above claim: That just makes him look very dumb, discrediting his work. He should be more discerning! Comet 3I/Atlas is way out there in Jupiter. You can check out this database, adjusting for distance and orbit.

I see the self- calming narrative though. A cluster of comets can be explained away easily by "this comet 3I Atlas who is a rare thing and will never come back in our lifetime". Comet 3I Atlas is just a sign, or a part of a larger group.

3IAtlas is 8 km according to the Cs, 4 to 6 km according to mainstream sources. Some of the new moons detected in Jupiter and Saturn are even bigger.