Meteor, Rocket or Satellite? A Field Guide for the Draconids and Orionids, October 2026
Two October meteor showers peak this month: the Draconids on the evening of October 8 and the Orionids before dawn around October 21–22.
Tag: Sky & Space
32 case files, newest first.
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Starlink 11-20: The "Comet" Over Phoenix Was a Rocket
Just after 7 p.m. on September 28, 2025, a long, glowing streak drifted across Arizona from Flagstaff to Tucson, and some people asked if it was a comet.
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SAOCOM 1A: The 'Ghostlike' Streak Over Phoenix Was a Rocket (and Its Booster Coming Home)
At 7:21 p.m. on October 7, 2018, people across metro Phoenix photographed a strange glowing streak in the western sky.
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2018 LA: The Asteroid Spotted Hours Before It Hit Botswana
On 2 June 2018 a telescope in Arizona found a small asteroid eight hours before it struck Earth.
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Iridium-4: The Night Los Angeles Pulled Over to Watch a Rocket
At dusk on December 22, 2017, a glowing, branching cloud crossed the Southern California sky and stopped traffic on the freeways.
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The 2 June 2016 Arizona Fireball: Not a Rocket, and the Stones to Prove It
At 3:56 a.m. on June 2, 2016, a fireball lit up the Southwest, and sonic booms were heard across the Phoenix area.
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The Slow Fireball of December 22, 2015: A Russian Rocket Stage Comes Home Over Arizona
On the Tuesday before Christmas 2015, a bright, slow, fragmenting light crossed the evening sky from California to Arizona.
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Chelyabinsk, 15 February 2013: The Fireball Everyone Filmed
A 20-meter asteroid exploded over the southern Urals, brighter than the Sun.
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The Novato Fireball, 17 October 2012: Cameras Called the Fall, a Roof Confirmed It
In October 2012 sky cameras caught a Bay Area fireball and predicted the fall zone. Days later a stone turned up in Novato.
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2008 TC3: The First Asteroid Caught Before It Hit
On 6 October 2008 astronomers spotted a small asteroid 19 hours before impact and predicted where it would fall.
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Carancas, 15 September 2007: A Crater, a Smell and a Sick Village
A stony meteorite hit the Altiplano near Lake Titicaca and blasted a water-filled crater.
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Tagish Lake, 18 January 2000: The Meteorite That Fell on Ice
A brilliant fireball over the Yukon and northern British Columbia dropped fragments onto a frozen lake.
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Ice From a Clear Sky: Airliner 'Blue Ice' and Spain's Ice-Block Scare of January 2000
The FAA has a record of ice falling from airliners onto houses and cars, from leaking lavatory systems.
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The Peekskill Fireball, 9 October 1992: The Meteor That Hit a Car
In October 1992 a fireball filmed across several states dropped a 12 kg stone through the trunk of a parked car in Peekskill.
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ALH84001: The Antarctic Rock That Put 'Life on Mars' on Front Pages
A meteorite picked up on the Antarctic ice in 1984 turned out to be from Mars.
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Skylab Falls on Esperance, 11 July 1979
America's first space station came down early, scattering pieces across the Western Australian outback.
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The Kaikōura Lights, 1978: What New Zealand's Government Actually Said
In the last hours of 1978 a TV crew on a cargo flight filmed bright lights off New Zealand's Kaikōura coast, and air-traffic radar logged returns.
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The Wow! Signal, 15 August 1977: 72 Seconds From Sagittarius
A narrowband radio signal hit Ohio State's Big Ear telescope once and never came back.
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Kecksburg, 9 December 1965: The Acorn in the Woods
A fireball crossed six US states and Ontario; people in a Pennsylvania village said something came down in nearby woods and the military took it away.
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The Sylacauga Meteorite, 1954: The Stone That Came Through the Roof
In November 1954 a stone crashed through a roof near Sylacauga, Alabama, and struck a woman on her couch. The Air Force took it away by helicopter.
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October 9, 1933: The Night the Dragon Woke Up Over Europe
On the evening of October 9, 1933, observers across Europe counted hundreds of meteors a minute, and in rural Portugal the sight caused real alarm.
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The Holbrook Meteorite Shower, 19 July 1912
An exploding fireball dropped thousands of stones near Holbrook, Arizona.
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Tunguska, 30 June 1908: The Siberian Blast Without a Crater
A cosmic body exploded over the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Siberia and flattened about 2,000 square kilometers of forest.
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The Phoenix Fireball, October 1906
A golden-trailed fireball crossed the Salt River Valley at dinnertime on 6 October 1906 and broke up with a boom.
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The Meteor Every Town Claimed, October 1894
At about ten on a Sunday night in October 1894, one brilliant fireball crossed Arizona Territory.
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The Great Moon Hoax, 1835: When a New York Paper Found Man-Bats on the Moon
In August 1835 the New York Sun reported that Sir John Herschel had seen bat-winged people on the moon. It was invented. Here is how the hoax worked.
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The Stones That Fell at L'Aigle, 1803: The Day Science Admitted Rocks Fall From the Sky
In April 1803 thousands of stones rained on fields near L'Aigle in Normandy. A young physicist walked the villages and proved they came from the sky.
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The Mesón de Fierro, 1783: The Iron Mass of the Chaco That Fell From the Sky
In 1783 a Spanish naval officer dug around a huge mass of pure iron on Argentina's Chaco plain and blamed a volcano. It had fallen from the sky.
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The Wabar Craters, 1932: Philby Went Looking for a Lost City and Found a Meteorite Strike
In 1932 Harry St John Philby crossed the Empty Quarter to find Wabar, a city burned by fire from heaven. He found meteorite craters. We trace how old they are.
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Tall el-Hammam: The "Sodom" Airburst Paper That Was Retracted
In 2021 a team argued in Scientific Reports that a cosmic airburst destroyed a Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley, possibly inspiring the story of Sodom.
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From the Archive, October 2026: Fireballs, Toe Joints and a Cow in the Moonlight
Our first monthly archive pack: eight period newspaper reports from 1888 to 1938, each paired with what came later.
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Is It a Satellite? A Five-Minute Check Before You Report a Light
Most steady moving lights are satellites or the ISS. Here is how we check, using free public tools.
