News & Tech

What a week for watching the sky. A meteor shocked residents in the Northwest awake with a sonic boom, a beautiful lunar eclipse took place on Wednesday night and in an event that was not witnessed but a great skywatching story, the US Military says they actually hit the falling spy satellite with a missile in what has always sounded like a science fiction type Hollywood movie plot.

Big Week for Sky Watchers

First up this week was a meteor that flashed in the skies of the Pacific Northwest early Tuesday morning was accompanied by a sonic boom. This had some people in a panic early in the morning. The sonic booms indicate at least a portion of the meteor survived entry into earth's atmosphere, slowing from 50,000 miles an hour to just 4,000. The meteor was caught on video before authorities could claim it was swamp gas or an airplane. Scientists are now propping exactly what happened.


If you didn't have clouds in your area and didn't bother to go outside and watch the lunar eclipse on Wednesday, you missed quite the show. In a beautiful slow show the moon went from bright white to orange. The only total lunar eclipse occurred on Wednesday night and you will have to wait until 2010 for the next one.

If you missed it and someone sends you an e-mail promising video be very careful, as there is a warning that there is an e-mail scam that promises stunning views of the eclipse but instead contains a virus.


And the much-anticipated star wars type shot at a falling spy satellite has worked according to government officials. A missile interceptor launched from a US Navy warship on Wednesday struck the spy satellite and they believe they hit the fuel tank. "We have a high degree of confidence we got the tank," Marine Gen. James Cartwright said at a Pentagon briefing Thursday morning.

It cost about $60 million for the try and officials say that it has reduced the pieces to nothing larger than the size of a football. CNN reports that the military timed its shoot-down attempt so that resulting debris would tumble into the atmosphere and not interfere with other satellites.