A Large and Brilliant Fire-ball Meteor

Abstract

ON Sunday, the 14th inst., about 9h. 45m. p.m., I was entering my house by the back door, when the whole place was so brilliantly illuminated that I momentarily supposed there had been a flash of lightning. That erroneous impression was at once removed by the continuance of the light. Wheeling round, I saw a splendid meteor of the fire-ball type, descending obliquely through the sky. Though the Monday newspapers reported serious fog in London on the previous day, yet the night sky at Loughton was perfectly clear; and it was easy to see that the meteor in its descent was passing a little to the right of the constellation Gemini, in a direction nearly, but not quite, parallel to a line joining Castor and Pollux. The head, which was downwards, was a large oval mass of light. The tail was not a mere thread of silvery radiance, like those of November 1866; it seemed broad, irregular on the edges, and sending out sparks. The fire-ball had not descended far when it vanished among a shower of sparks, which also very speedily disappeared. I heard no rushing sound during its course, and no noise of an explosion when it came to its end.