Peru Meteor Just a Contrail?

The video of a suspected meteor crashing to Earth near Cusco, Peru is flaming its way across the internet. Some say the video isn't what it seems. To brief you, here it is:




CBS News, the BBC and other sources reported on this phenomena. Early reports cited officials saying that the fireball may have ignited forest fires in the drought-stricken region.

Not so fast, says Daniel Fischer, AKA @cosmos4u, who quickly corrected me on Twitter. He's a pretty savvy guy, and when queried, he quickly tweeted:

"This mistake happens again and again and ... see http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/news/760.html#753 for the 'classic' from 2003 - lessons not learned, though ..."

Unfortunately, I don't speak (or read) German, so Daniel's link didn't help me much. But here's the key thing: when is seeing believing?

What establishes proof? Take a good look at the video. What do you see?

A meteor or a contrail?

BTW, you can read Daniel's blog at Cosmos4u. His lead for today is a supernova in galaxy Messier 101.

Springing forward

Yes, indeed, folks, it's time for most of us in the U.S. to do the spring clock ritual. Push that clock forward and claim a bit more daylight.

The Peanut blog is also springing forward after a hiatus. For awhile, I was the Space News Examiner on Examiner dot com. Did I make money? Heck, yea.

Did I leave? Heck, yea.

The reasons were many, but pretty much focused on professional standards and ethics. That being said, I enjoyed expanding my network in the space community, and really had a heck of a good time writing about space again, often 2 to 4 stories a day.

Most of all, I found Twitter. You can follow me at PEP010. I'm also a proud member of the Space Tweep Society , whose founder, Jen Scheer flyingjenny, won this year's Shorty Award for Science tweets.

I also took some time off to deal with health issues and test out being at least semi-retired. For a compulsive over-achiever workaholic, this was an interesting experiment.

Much to my surprise, I discovered something new--deep within this Type A++++ personality lurks a happy little B personality who's perfectly delighted to goof off with friends, read, and oops, new addiction, play computer games. Plus, of course, having a good time with my two rescue dogs, Bran the German Shepherd (106 pounds now) and Owain Glendower the Pembroke Welsh Corgi (weighing in at 32 pounds and the leader of the pack).

Then there's the Oklahoma Hep Cats, under the direction of Hoppy, Senior Cat, a most meticulous cat. In a former life he was a British butler and often reminds me of how I should be conducting affairs in his household.

What am I going to do with this blog next? I don't know. I do know that I'm itching to start writing out loud again.

And I can write very, very loudly on issues I'm passionate about. Or, whisper softly and seductively about other worlds of passion.

I am, after all, not only just a journalist, but a poet.

For spring, I'm putting on my poet crown and my best metaphor gamboling shoes. Then there's the magic cape for flying well beyond gravity and loop-de-looping up there where the eagles play.

Pull up your lawn chairs (in Oklahoma preparing for the social season requires keeping a lawn chair in your car at all times), hoist a cold one, have some popcorn, and enjoy the show. You can yell encouragement too, if you like. (You would like to yell encouragement, right? Right.)

It's spring, folks. Time for new growth.