Astronomy What was that in the night sky?

Question

I live in Alabama and was wondering if anyone seen the shooting star, comet whatever that was last night in the sky and could someone please tell me what exactly it was. It took my breath it was so beautiful.

Answer 1

If it was bright white or yellow and was fast moving, then it was a meteorite.

Answer 2

Why not go and read about meteors and comets. I am amazed how many people mix them up.

Meteors (which is what you saw) streak across the sky because basically they are only tens of kilometres above your head.

Comets are massive bodies that generally don't come within a million miles of us. Therefore, although you can often plot the movement of a comet from one night to the next, you will waste your time trying to watch it move. It is in fact moving as fast as the meteor, but is 10s of thousands of times as far away.

Comets and meteors are connected in that meteors are dust fragments left behind by the passage of comets. These fragments when entering the atmosphere at 12 km/sec or more, burn up with the frictional forces. This is what you see.

Answer 3

It was most likely it was a meteor (or thunderstone, as the ancients called it), since there are no close comets due now. I saw a large one about a week ago, and the radiation from it was green, revealing its type and composition. Remember that meteors fall much faster than satellites and other air-spacecrafts.