I've seen one of these too a few years back. I'm waaay into astronomy but, in addition to being very exciting to see, it was still a bit unsettling because you have no immediate way of gauging how large the thing is, whether it might flatten a city nearby, or be 'the big one' (super slim chance, but tell that to your adrenaline).
Does anyone know if an ICBM would be this bright? I'd expect that towards the end of the trajectory it might not even need its torch, so the first light would be payload.
The part where it's leaving a trail is material ablating (vaporizing) off the outside of the re-entry vehicle. It's still bright after that because it's still traveling at mach 5-6 or so (very dense pointed entry vehicle that doesn't lose speed), so it maintains a superheated state where the surface is glowing white hot.
It's sad to think that there's a latent worry about that sort of thing living in this city.
Everyone, including grade school children old enough to be aware of it, used to worry about that sort of thing. That latent fear lay across everything and everyone in the US, until around the time the Berlin Wall fell. It was an incredible feeling of the lifting of a mental burden.
Be assured, you were (and are) not alone. North-western Europe in the eighties, any unusual sound or sight from above, I'd be on alert, yellow verging on red. Damn, I was on a remote island off the North Queensland coast in '85 or '86 when the world went suddenly radio silent, and I instantly assumed EMP and nuclear cataclysm on the mainland, whereas it was of course just a major regional power outage.
Like everyone else, I let my defenses drop after '91 or thereabouts. They are back up these days, I can assure you. Unexpected lowflying aircraft, loud bangs, F16 fighters screaming pairwise out over the Baltic, believe me, I pay attention.
Grew up in the ‘60’s in DC. Our school had an air raid siren and monthly drill where we stood in the hall along the wall ordered alphabetically by last name. We never ducked and covered, we just stood there. At least we were practicing to die standing on our feet and not cowering in a fetal position
Duck and cover gets a lot of mockery, but my understanding from reading morbidly fascinating Cold War history and source material is that is was an easily-taught response that was pretty effective at minimizing the damage from a shockwave and associated debris, or from direct exposure to the thermal pulse. Of course, that is only a narrow range of all possible causes of injury from a nearby nuclear detonation.
was an easily-taught response that was pretty effective at minimizing the damage from a shockwave and associated debris
My freshman physics professor had a story about working for a cold war defense research lab, and not being told what the graph he was working on was about until he absolutely had to know. Eventually, it was revealed that the graph was for % fatalities from flying glass by height of airburst, megatonnage of weapon, and distance from ground zero.
It was at that moment, he decided to find a job elsewhere.
Personally, I doubt whether many Cold War-era missiles would still work. I mean, most materials degrade over time, especially highly reactive rocket fuels and the explosives in the nukes. This is no reason to feel safe though - the newer stuff and the gadgets of the Chinese are in prime condition. And it takes only one of them to open up a whole new chapter of history...
China, unlike the United States, and Russia, has a nuclear arsenal numbering in the hundreds, instead of the thousands. It also has a no-first-use policy For those reason, I trust it to use then in a purely defensive manner.
> There is zero rational reason for that fear disappearing.
Yes, there is. Political bravado coupled with distrust of politics in general and mainstream information being what it is today it's very hard for citizens to notice geo-political turmoils.
Personnaly I'd blame the fascination for useless plastic gadgets masquerading as star-trek level tech but I can't be certain.
Most of those who would find out first would already be in a bunker, simply because their workplace is a bunker. Alerting the public would be their best strategy to get their family to safety.
If you need your family to drive far away quickly, letting everyone else know they should be doing the same thing is a bad idea. You want your family ahead of the inevitable wave of knowledge.
Even if they’re at home and you have a bunker, you don’t want the neighbors inviting themselves over. You want them locked safely inside before anyone else knows.
I think that's a pretty terrible stance to take, for a short term event like this there is no disadvantage to sharing the structural security of the bunker with others. The only time locking yourself in is really important is if it's a long term disaster, either something nuclear (where this is most valid) or a natural disaster, like a hurricane (where your bunker is essentially just a really secure fridge/food storage device and the structural soundness of the bunker is _less_ relevant (but not irrelevant))
I think the ethical damage an act like that would cause psychologically makes even that semi-rational action a bad one to take. Thinking it in the abstract is different from having to spend weeks locked away in isolation underground pondering the neighbors or just human lives that your actions ended - even accepting the fact that you didn't initiate the ICBM and that if you didn't live where you did there'd be no bunker to possibly save people... I'm pretty sure everyone would be coming out of the bunker severely damaged with survivor's guilt and constantly second guess if maybe it would've been okay to let one or two in...
Basically, in the abstract, and in pop culture according to video games and movies... your approach is the way to "win", but the human psyche is a fragile thing.
(I'd clarify, this isn't meant as any sort of criticism, I just think that considering these sorts of scenarios in a abstract sterile setting is very different from how you'd experience them as they happened - and that's interesting to me.)
It's more a question of if you think anyone (in possession of icbms at least) would take that risk in the current state of the world? Seems unlikely. That said after I posted I was reminded of the time I woke up the sound of the air raid siren in Latvia. That was disorientating to say the least.
Countries have quite happily committed suicide. Consider the attack on the United States by Imperial Japan. Everyone in that government knew that the war they were starting was unwinnable. They were right, and their empire and government was dismantled in 1945.
You can't expect rational behavior from governments. In a time of crisis, there will always be some idiot in power, who doesn't want to face reality, or cares about their pet issue more then overall well-being, or feels that they have no alternative options.
Interesting. But I doubt South Korea would attack the North, knowing perfectly well their main cities can be razed to the ground by NK's conventional, not even nuclear weapons. At the same time, I don't think North Korea would start blasting off nukes over major cities, that would be pointless. In the worst case, a single nuke over the ocean, but close enough to a target, would be a sufficient signal of readiness to defend itself. Directing nuclear bombs to major targets as a first move doesn't make much sense, you don't leave the enemy any other option than obliterating you.
Note that the incident is started by North Korea downing a civilian jet, even if by mistake, South Korea reacting, NK going berserk with nukes, US responding with conventional weapons... Hmmm, a bit kind towards the West. The US certainly come out as the level headed guys, which doesn't sound very coherent with recent rhetoric and events.
In the book, the guy with the "Nuclear football" basically runs away at one point, but yeah, I'm not seeing a non-nuclear response. Tit-for-tat is the entire basis of MAD.
The conventional response is modeled on Mattis' philosophy. The US clearly comes out divided as a country and destroyed politically and economically because Trump couldn't tweet.
I would add Nazi Germany to that little list. Their declaration of war on the United States in December of 1941 was flatly suicidal (already fighting Russia where they had lost the initiative, and already in a two front European war due to the continued presence of England) But declare war they did anyhow and not only was the Third Reich dismantled, it was flat out devastated and incinerated with several million deaths. Germany suffered the second highest death toll of any country in the European theater of war, and all this was allowed to suicidally happen despite every single one of Hitler's generals and most of the top Nazi party bosses completely knowing that their leader's decision in late 1941 was guaranteed to destroy them. They just went along with it though.
Churchill rather typically stated it most succinctly: When presented in late 1941 with the report of Hitlers declaration of War on the U.S he said (paraphrasing a bit from memory on the literature) "So then we do win this war after all.."
As for Japan, SOME of the top people in the government and military knew they were committing slow suicide with their attack (Yamamoto for example, thought it was complete idiocy to fight the U.S) but there were enough fanatical believers to push through their idea that if they could just get the upper hand on the U.S in a preemptive naval/air war in 1942, they might secure peace for their Asian conquests.
Iraq did a move like that in 2002. The United States demanded that Saddam Hussein let weapons inspectors in (to look for WMDs that, as it turns out, did not exist), and something, something, bullshit, something 9/11.
Saddam Hussein thought that telling the United States to go pound sand was the correct move. He thought that all the talk by the warhawks in the Bush administration was just bluster.
As it turns out, that talk was not bluster, telling the US to sod off was not the correct move, he got to dance the hemp fandango, and 16 years later, Iraq is still in the middle of a civil war.
These kinds of geopolitical failures happen when one country's leadership mispredicts how another country will react to its actions. This can happen in any year, be it 1939, 1941, 2002, or 2019.
Pretty big difference in situations. I don't recall any country in recent history making such a big move as firing a nuke at the US out of the blue. Not in 1939, 1941, 2002, or 2019.
These things don't start by one side firing a nuke.
They either start by one side believing the other side fired a nuke. (See: Every close call having to do with a communication failure/false detection.)
Or by one side believing that firing a tactical nuke is the only way to accomplish their goal. The battle doctrines of both the United States, and Russia, permit the use of tactical nuclear weapons in conventional military engagements. I wouldn't be surprised if, in a shooting war, some idiot were to actually use a tactical nuclear weapon, believing that it would not escalate into an exchange of strategic nuclear weapons.
In addition to what the sibling mentions, there are also technical failures, mistakes, and rogue actors. Granted, these are ICBMs; but starting a war between Russia and the US is likely to be very profitable for someone.
I really can't find a reason to agree with this. I guess if we use different definitions of "war." But a total war between any two superpowers will be profitable for no one.
> But a total war between any two superpowers will be profitable for no one.
This assertion has no historical basis. Plenty of people stand to profit from such a war. Just look at World War II. Countries, companies, and individuals profited greatly. Even in the worst case of total nuclear annihilation, someone who was prepared for such an event could profit, depending on your definition of profit. In any case, what matters is whether the people involved believe they can profit; however they define profit.
But in the current political climate I don't see anyone being motivated to do a nuclear strike against another nuclear power (with the possible exception of India/Pakistan against each other), much less one that could retaliate against a preemptive strike with nuclear submarines. And historically in many situations with much clearer incentives it still didn't happen. In that sense it's out of the blue.
Seems kinda harsh. A giant glowing ball traveling insanely fast in the sky is a very bizarre event and it's reasonable for people to get a little scared.
why would that be reasonable? US is not constantly under attack, neither is any other country. But Earth IS constantly bombarded by meteors, so it's completely reasonable to expect that once in a while a meteor will be big enough to become a glowing ball, instead of expecting a random ICBM. Not to mention ICBMs don't burn up in the atmosphere. Really the idea that at any moment there can be an ICBM coming your way and it will look like this is totally ridiculous and only created by fearmongering TV news. Real world is elsewhere.
On a similar note - the number of people asking about ICBMs every time SpaceX has a twilight launch... facepalm
“The preliminary 3D trajectory computed based on all the reports submitted to the AMS shows that the fireball was traveling from North to South and ended its flight in the Atlantic Ocean in front of Bethany Beach, DE,” the American Meteor Society said. https://wtop.com/science/2019/04/watch-fireball-streaks-acro...
I live about 4 miles south of Bethany Beach on the Atlantic. I was inside, but the light lit up my house so much I thought either my house was on fire or a car was about to crash into my home.
I was thinking of the original etymology of "nova", which is derived from the Latin term for "new star". Though to be insufferably pedantic, a real nova within the bounds of Earth's atmosphere would not seem particularly stationary to those unlucky enough to observe it from the ground. :)
Double entendre, subtext send similar are a large part of marketing. It's often used in the vein of "sex sells," but can have other uses.
I got the information from a piece about translation fails in international branding campaigns. It wouldn't surprise me if the article has inaccuracies. It's hard enough for someone to be fluent enough in two languages and knowledgeable enough about two cultures to effectively fact check such a piece and the piece covered multiple incidences involving various languages and cultures, not just Spanish-English.
IIRC, here are a few other examples from the article:
Coca cola apparently originally was written in Chinese such that it meant "bite the frog." Sales improved after they modified it such that it meant "happiness in the mouth."
The Spanish word for "embarrassed" doesn't get used to mean embarrassed. It gets used to mean pregnant. Some campaign for some trivial thing like toothpaste or breathe mints had a slogan about use their product "and never be embarrassed again" which weirdly got translated to "and never get pregnant again."
Some toothpaste that bragged about it's whitening ability bombed when they tried to market it in a culture where people dyed their teeth some dark color.
> I got the information from a piece about translation fails in international branding campaigns.
Yes, the Nova story is very common in that context, but everyone who's actually done the research has found that the Nova actually sold decently well. The story probably originates with some English speaker who knew some Spanish seeing the car's name, read it as "no va", and assumed that "of course that would sell poorly" and using that as an example of marketing failure, which everyone copied without fact-checking.
Note that Spanish does have a word "nova", which means exactly the same thing it does in English (a stellar birth), and could be used as a marketing name in Spanish-speaking countries with much the same connotations as you could find in English. After all, Pemex has a brand of fuel that's called "Nova," which should instantly debunk the story.
After all, Pemex has a brand of fuel that's called "Nova," which should instantly debunk the story.
For those who are in the know, speak Spanish, etc.
I did qualify my remark to indicate as clearly as I could that I lack such credentials and there's room for error here when I led with "From what I've read."
There are good ways to add such knowledge to the discussion. Raking someone over the coals for trying to join in with people playing with language for light-hearted fun is probably not one of them.
> Coca cola apparently originally was written in Chinese such that it meant "bite the frog." Sales improved after they modified it such that it meant "happiness in the mouth."
I've always been confused by that, as I couldn't get Coca-Cola to be anywhere phonetically close to 蛙 ("wa"), which would be the character for frog. Had to look it up — https://service.goodcharacters.com/blog/blog.php?id=225 has it as being 蝌蝌啃蠟, which is mostly nonsense, but if I had to translate it, it would be closer to "tadpole nibbles wax". Or possibly, "ke ke brand nibbling wax", assuming "nibbling wax" is a thing. It certainly doesn't sound like a drink.
I got the site to load but it was very slow and took a second try. I happened to be standing outside in Reston, looking East and saw the whole thing. I've never seen anything like it. Extremely bright with a green tinge, moving fast like a meteor. It was visible long enough that I was able to tell people to turn around and check it out.
Definitely a little unsettling. It was bright enough some folks that hadn't seen the whole trajectory thought it might have been fireworks.
Is it just me or do those events occure more often than say, 3-5 years ago? I understand we observe more, record and report more, but there should not be a significant difference from 5 years ago, right? I used to read about them and it was one-off wow event, now I read about it and feels like everyday news...
There's been a huge proliferation of cameras in the last 10 years and more recently as dashcams have come into increasing prevalence as camera costs come down more and more.
They're super useful for filing road debris insurance claims. I was able to pull a frame from my dashcam video to show my insurance the airborne tire tread that destroyed the front end of my car.
There's a thousand different reviews available but I've been a fan of Wirecutter for almost anything they've taken the time to review and I've had pretty good results so far.
It's not clear to me if this is because the frequency is actually increasing... maybe it has to do with an increase in the number of cameras, or growing awareness of the AMS website?
Tis a shame I started to go to bed earlier during the weekdays recently. Otherwise I may have been able to see this outside my apartment window.
Personal grumpiness aside though, I'm relieved that it didn't end up making landfall considering how close it was to some pretty major cities. I wonder if there's any hope for recovery of the meteorite itself since it appears to have fallen in the bay/ocean. Is it possible that it's close enough to land that they could find even a few parts of it?
Either way, I'm hoping more footage of the entry event starts coming in. Preferrably with audible reactions.
There's also probably a bunch of other junk down there to throw false positives. You'll make more selling the scrap metal you haul up than you will selling the meteorite (still won't be a money-maker though).
We have other ways to determine the nature of a falling object. Much can be assertained from its trajectory, deceleration, and luminance. It’s trivial to determine that this was not a reentry vehicle.
Exactly. If that was a vehicle/projectile, even watching the dashcam videos of it, it's quite obvious that parts of it underwent rapid, unplanned desintegration. So it likely would't have done anything significant if it was (it was not.)
It was very large and very bright. For several seconds after it had disappeared, I expected a large "boom" to occur. Quite an unsettling moment.
edit: Looks like some dash cams caught it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbXdL5YTu50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szdGhRNg6h0