November 06, 2013 - SPACE - Every night, a network of
NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs.
Automated software maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics.
On Nov. 1, 2013, the network reported
11 fireballs (9 sporadics, 2 Orionids).
On Nov. 2, 2013, the network reported
12 fireballs (9 sporadics, 1 Orionid, 1 Northern Taurid, 1 omicron Eridanid).
On Nov. 4, 2013, the network reported
12 fireballs (8 sporadics, 3 Northern Taurids, 1 Orionid).
In these diagrams of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are
color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [
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Space Weather.