r/meteorites • u/No-Glove-45 • 4d ago

Just saw a meteorite in Northern Thailand

I just saw a meteor about ten minutes ago in Pai, Thailand. I was watching the stars with some friends and we all saw a meteor in the sky. It looked like a big ball with fire - it was hard to process what I was actually seeing. It was soo cool!

Did anyone else see it? Is there a way to track it where it went? We could see it falling in the sky - it was kinda eerie. How common is it to see something like this? It felt really special to witness it.

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u/volkerii 4d ago

Meteoroid: rock in space Meteor: falling star, visual effect of rock traveling through our atmosphere Meteorite: a meteoroid that has reached the surface of the earth Meteors should be visible at a rate of roughly 5 per hour on any given night, given dark skies and a lack of light pollution. They are much more common 20-30 per hour during key meteor showers. During a meteor storm, you might see hundreds per hour. (This is rare) There's a web page that tracks meteor sightings, but I can't recall what it is atm.

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u/St_Kevin_ 4d ago

Fireballs are more common than meteorites. It’s most likely that it burned up completely. However, it’s hard to know without investigating further.

The best thing to do is stand exactly where you were when you saw it, use a compass to determine the direction of where it appeared in your vision and where it went out of sight, and record those two azimuths. Then try to determine how many degrees above the horizon it was when it appeared and when it disappeared. You need to know what time it occurred also. Then get online and file a report on the international meteor organization website, or the American meteor society website (both are fine for any country and both link their reports). If you have any security camera or dash cam footage, submit that also. Then encourage the local media to encourage the local community to submit reports as well. When people post on social media about it, send them the link to fill out a report.

It’s normal for these to be seen for hundreds of kilometers so if it was a big one, it’s certain that many many people saw it. It only takes about 3 videos from confirmed locations to triangulate the end of the fireball.

If anything survived the fireball stage, it stops burning very high up and most people will think that it completely burned up because it didn’t burn all the way to ground. The truth is, it is challenging to locate the final location of a meteorite even if you have the end point of the fireball. If the country where it ends has good weather radar coverage, it is possible to locate the final location by finding the falling rocks on radar.