Last night, around 10:05 pm CDT, sky watchers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri witnessed a brilliant green fireball streaking across the sky. Images from a rooftop webcam in Madison, Wisconsin, show a brilliant midair explosion:

The fireball was caused by a small asteroid hitting Earth's atmosphere at a shallow angle. Preliminary infrasound measurements place the energy of the blast at 20 tons of TNT (0.02 kton), with considerable uncertainty.

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office estimates that the space rock was about 1 meter wide and massed some 1260 kg.

"Fireballs of this size are surprisingly common," he notes. "They hit Earth about 14 times a month, on average, although most go unnoticed because they appear during the day or over unpopulated areas."

Many readers have asked if fragments of the meteoroid might have reached Earth. The answer is "yes." Cooke advises looking directly underneath the fireball's debris trail, which was pinged by National Weather Service radars in Iowa.

Posted: 7:46:06 AM  

Cliff's gentle touch leaves boisterous bunnies flat on their back in a trance.

Posted: 7:29:10 AM  

RESEARCHERS in France say they had found two possible compounds that could protect against ricin, a naturally-occurring poison used in murder and political assassinations and eyed as a bioterror weapon.

Yeah, I saw that in a movie .... ehm...was it ... ehm ... 007?
Quantum of Solace ... yeps.
'THINGS' are SHOWN in MOVIES ...

Posted: 7:23:54 AM  

An image made available by NEODASS/University of Dundee which shows the volcanic ash plume from Iceland, top left, to the north of Britain as received by NASA's Terra Satellite at 11.39 GMT Thursday April 15, 2010.

All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries have been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south. The UK's air traffic control service (Nats) said no flights would be allowed in UK airspace until at least 0700 BST on Friday amid fears of engine damage. The airspace restriction was the worst in living memory, a spokesman said.

Posted: 12:30:52 AM