Starship Asterisk*

My missus just called me into the garden/back yard.

England, At GMT 8.15pm Heading South East. Very bright object , with no tail, so was not burning up. It took 30 seconds to go from north west to south east. then back out into space.

Mark

mark swain wrote:England, At GMT 8.15pm Heading South East. Very bright object , with no tail, so was not burning up. It took 30 seconds to go from north west to south east. then back out into space.

30 seconds is very long for a natural fireball. It's possible it was space junk as well.

There's really no way to tell if it was a true Earth grazer; you can't tell visually if it stops burning because it leaves the atmosphere, or if it simply burns up. The most impressive fireballs tend to happen early in the evening, and move from west to east.

I only saw the last few seconds. My missus said she thought it was a fire work. And what I saw was very very bright. and going very fast. I saw it get dimmer and dimmer until i could see it no more. I saw no flames or smoke trail. She may of done it lasted between 15 and 30 seconds. I have seen a confirmed Earth grazer before. That had flames and was said to be the size of a Bus. That one, i saw for around 10 seconds.

Edit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/n ... lease=2247

There are thousands of visible satellites criss-crossing the sky in all directions, some of which are in low orbit.
Otherwise, at a guess, I'd vote with the 'space junk' verdict.