If the meteor was slow, then it definitely was not a Perseid.  Perseids come in at almost 60km/s!

Though rare, you can see a slow Perseid if you happen to view it almost head on.  Observed speed depends not only on entry speed, but also on the angle it is observed and distance.  But if it lasts for several seconds, then it's safe to say it's not a Perseid.  Because of the high entry speed, Perseids are only visible in the uppermost atmosphere and never penetrate deep.
I received many reports this morning about a bright fireball during the rush hour, some reporting that it illuminated the landscape, but because of the weather I have no recordings. Would have been interesting to check whether that indeed was a Geminid.

I have also seen meteors that do weird things like take right hand turns and change direction, etc.

Impossible for a meteor.

Oh, I forgot to post to say the discussion following from that was moved to the UFO sightings and possible explanations thread.  Most likely it was just an airplane, but it also led to a lot of interesting talk about different meteor effects.

Wat perhaps this belongs in the cosmology thread, but what do you think of the recent paper published about dark fluid as a way to unify dark matter and dark energy?  The authors say it is an elegant way to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe while also explaining how galaxies are held together- but they do incorporate a substance- dark fluid- that has negative mass.

https://www.inquisitr.com/5199137/an-ox ... -universe/

The link to the paper is in that article.

There was another one I found interesting

https://www.inquisitr.com/5210969/a-doc ... e-machine/

That one also has a link to a science paper in there, but the title is somewhat deceptive.  It doesn't need exotic matter but it needs a naked singularity to make it work, which may not be possible.

Wat perhaps this belongs in the cosmology thread, but what do you think of the recent paper published about dark fluid as a way to unify dark matter and dark energy?

I wrote a review/critique of it here if you'd like to see that.  Otherwise the short version is that it makes several incorrect predictions, or fails to predict things that we do observe.  Examples:

By removing the positive mass-density dark matter and dark energy and replacing them with something that has negative mass density, it predicts an extremely negative spatial curvature.  Light rays moving through the universe would be spread apart.  This is contradicted by observations showing the curvature is close to flat.

Another problem is it doesn't explain the observations of the Bullet cluster (or colliding galaxy clusters in general), when it really should, as a model that proposes to replace dark matter.


Problems with it aside, it is an interesting way to build a cosmological model, and the author did do a good job exploring its properties.  I may even do a more detailed post exploring this model in the cosmology thread later -- it's exactly the sort of thing the thread is suited for.

An international team of astronomers has discovered the furthest object ever detected in the Solar System. Nicknamed “Farout”, it’s a small round object with a pinkish hue located 17.95 billion kilometers (11.15 billion miles) from the Sun. The color is common in ice-rich objects.

https://www.iflscience.com/space/meet-f ... bject-yet/

So umm, WHY are we reducing the amount of "fun" colors in 0.990 again?

 17.95 billion kilometers (11.15 billion miles) from the Sun.

Argh.  Journalists know how to obfuscate things.  They could just have well written this number in cuneiform and left it as an exercise to the reader to translate it into something meaningful.  I've done it this time.  It's 120 AU.

 Journalists know how to obfuscate things.  They could just have well written this number in cuneiform and left it as an exercise to the reader to translate it into something meaningful.

Hahaha.  Possibly even worse: astronomers have a odd quirk of measuring astronomical distances in centimeters.  Yes, the marvelous CGS units...  thankfully this old-school system seems to be nearly died out.  I won't miss it.

Added:  In the realm of slightly less astronomical distances, one thing that drives me nuts is when they feel the need to express them in terms of "football fields".  As in 100 yards.  As if 100 yards is an obvious distance scale to anyone outside of the US and hand-egg fans.

Not to mention olympic-size swimming pools, as if that is an obvious volume scale to anyone outside, well, the elite swimming community.

As if astronomers would insist using solar masses for everyday objects. "I would like 5×10^-31 solar masses of beef, please".

Yes, the marvelous CGS units...  thankfully this old-school system seems to be nearly died out.  I won't miss it.

You are absolutely right Wats, I like the new Cosmic Millimeters system much better. Go Metric!

I miss the time they measured lengths in EN (Elephants Number).

I miss the time they measured lengths in EN (Elephants Number).

Is this a joke, or.... (I actually don't want to know) .

heheh, I just had a flashback of a book about dinosaurs when I was in that phase. There was a sketch of a brontosaurus and a blue whale, both with tiny elephants all along their backs.

1 light nanosecond = 1 foot.

1 light nanosecond = 1 foot.

They are definitely not equal.  But close enough for a 2% error.