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ASTRONOMY IRELAND SAYS its received hundreds of sighting reports since Tuesday night — when what was described as a ‘giant fireball’ was seen blazing across Ireland’s skies.
From Cork and Dublin to Belfast and Donegal — the heavenly object was spotted pretty much everywhere.
TheJournal.ie also had quite a few reports on the subject — as did BBC Northern Ireland and a raft of other media outlets.
“Clearly seen falling right to left over the sea towards Drogheda from Balbriggan at around 5.40pm, like a falling star for about 3-4 seconds before it burned out,” was how Dubliner Jim Whelan described it.
And this was the top response in our own comments section…
“My son saw it this evening. He thought it might have been a giant shooting star, a UFO, or molten lava (he’s 9 which I think explains the variety of possibilities ;-). He’s hugely excited now to think it may have been part of an asteroid.”
The phenomenon is believed to have been a ‘fireball’ meteor – part of an asteroid burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
And AI’s David Moore, speaking to us in Tuesday, was pretty confident it could mean the start of a meteorite-hunt.
“Some of the reports are saying it was ‘brighter than the full moon’ and that’s positive, because it indicates it may be able to survive the burning-up entry process,” Moore said.
However, now that all the data is in, it’s believed the space rock overflew the country, and landed somewhere in the sea to the north.
“Even people in Donegal were saying it was in the north and very low down — so it looks like it would have come down in the sea,” Moore told us yesterday evening.
You can see these generally from around 1,000 kilometres away, so this one, it appears, wouldn’t have come down over land.
The last Irish ‘space rock’ find was in Carlow in 1999. On that occasion, the fragments were sold to a collector for several thousand pounds.
Meanwhile, there’s another big night coming up for amateur stargazers — clear-skies permitting, we’ll be able to witness a significant display of shooting stars on 13 December.
On the night, there should be “20 times more shooting stars than normal,” according to Moore. We might even get a few ‘fireballs’ too.
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Rail? What’s the story with Dublin bus and scheduled buses mysteriously disappearing from the real time screen??? Happens every evening on Westland row #jokeshop
I like traffic lights I like traffic lights I like traffic lights I like traffic lights I like…..
Try Heuston Station, the start of the route. Bus in 2 mins = bus in any of the next 25 minutes. Complain is met with “we operate la la la la. …..we don’t know when the bus is coming…..”
That’s apparently caused by a glitch in the timetable and the actual location of the bus.. This results in invisible buses passing you out.
Oh – that and the conductor might decide to start a bus from further along the route than where you happen to be standing waiting like a goon. At least – that is an excuse I have been given more than once for a bus allegedly passing me when it didn’t.
It would be nice if the real time alerted you to delays or reroutes instead of just making you think the whole thing is simply a lie to give it the appearance of a functional transport system..
Just use rtpi.ie, little harder to navigate but I’ve never had a bus disappear on it!
Belive it or not about 6 years ago a major fault with signaling on the Dublin Cork line held people up for upto 3 hours in trains at various signals. The fault was the Mouse for the computer controlling the signals broke and they did not have a spare.
Someone should tell Irish Rail about CCleaner
Seems like a system as important as a rail signalling network which has the capability to mess up so badly when it fails, should have redundancy built in from the ground up.
Allowing a single point of failure to exist in critical IT infrastructure is just irresponsible. When a fare increase is about to be imposed it’s even worse.
If thesignal cable wasn’t robbed there wouldn’t be signal problems. And that’s the reason behind most signal faults
They do have back ups for all power, and plenty of back ups for safety. It’s impossible to back up the computer system, as it is very exact, and even if they tried, it could never automatically kick in. So there would still be big delays changing over. And from a strict safety aspect, it would all have to be re checked before it kicks in, which would take hours. But I’m sure it’s fixed now, so shouldn’t happen again.
Nonsense John. There are far more complex systems built with redundancy designed in, many approaches for doing it and precedents galore.
I’m not saying it’s easy, and would likely require a redesign/replacement of the existing platform, but it’s entirely possible. Do you think the large rail networks of the world run their signalling on single nodes?
It’s because we don’t invest it in it. General election and telling the ECB to do one will be one step to fixing it.
They are installing a new system. 60% done, 40% in progress
Sure that’s the answer to every thing now isn’t it. It’ll cost money, lots of money!
I’m currently sitting in castleknock on a train that I boarded an hour ago from docklands…. 17.55 train has been siting here for over half an hour due to something having to be cleared from the tracks….. I smell BULLSHIT
This one wasn’t bullshit, some dope drove a car onto the tracks at Porterstown
some pleb drove a car onto the line silly billix.
That could have been somebody having a stroke behind the wheel or something. Don’t assume the worst of people.
no medical issues on this one .
Same happens in London all the time. On the tube now – up the creek; probably get home to Ealing about 7….
Why cant they link leap card and send group txt for stoppages due to bad weather and fault. It’s too late finding out at the station
you say that as if sense ever prevails in this kip
Going by an error screen in one of the stations they still use Windows XP
They would call a strike if they were to upgrade.
Junkie sprawled on the track singing Paddy on the railway
I wouldn’t mind if they actually told the truth… This waiting on a Friday evening is not on!
Yet again..let me explain.. The anti Dublin socialists in government refuse to invest in Dublin . Yet again . Let me explain.. Irish want to expand and create two new dart lines , including an airport link . They have planning permission to build the tunnels and tracks but this pinko Dublin hating parochial government have refused to invest.
Yet again I have to explain…The EU have offered to fund up to €700 million via the European investment bank, but the FG’ers are still refusing.
Please any Dubliners reading this , wake up..!!..These farmers are treating us like fools and Dublin fools are more worried about €160 annual water charge than the future of their city..
You really don’t know who to blame, do you? Pinko Dublin-hating farmers? Utter nonsense.
I take it you’re not a Dubliner then Peter..
Hand over the running of it to the company that runs the luas
And how often is the Luas off due to signal faults Goldberg? On an almost daily basis.
Use it every day and goes like clockwork so not sure what one you use
Because its in Bleeding Dublin.
Are they fixing them with Sellotape
Don’t blame the computer blame the human operating the computer
Why?
Simply Murphy’s Law in action.
It’s really annoying when you are encouraged to use public transport yet at times when you do actually use it, it’s delayed. Thankfully at the moment I have the option of bus or dart to work but in a few weeks my only option will be the dart to travel to work. At the busiest time of the year for my job I can not afford to be late. Hopefully they will start communicating better with their commuters.
have your say