Strandings, inner solar system comet, airburst and new fireball detection for southern skies. Updated 20240801 - Meteor in English Channel

2024, July 26. Scotland, Orkney, Bay Of Tuquoy on Westray. Three Risso’s dolphins were saved from a beach. It comes just weeks after the island group was the scene of one of Britain's worst cetacean strandings. British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), ferried to the island by Kirkwall Lifeboat.

Dolphins saved from Orkney beach weeks after mass whale deaths on neighbouring island - Scottish Daily Express

2024, July 26. Western Australia, Binningup Beach, south of Perth. Dead juvanile Humpback.

Shire of Harvey forced to close Binningup Beach as juvenile humpback whale is found dead | Harvey Waroona Reporter (harveyreporter.com.au)

2024, July 28. Comet, Inner Solar System. Comet Tsunchinshan – ATLAS (C/2023A3) Might be falling apart before reaching perihelion around September.

2024, July 28. English Channel, Celtic Sea. Meteor. Velocity: 66 km/s. Duration: 5.42 sec. Coordinates: (49.78, -0.67) (50.46, -5.46). Range: 350km. Altitude: 120 – 118 km.  

Bright comet coming this fall might be falling apart. Why some astronomers haven’t lost hope (msn.com)

2024, July 30. Mid Pacific. Airburst. Coordinates: ( -6.7, -124). e = 2.7, -e= 0.095. Altitude: 39 km. Velocity: 14.6 km/s.

The southern hemisphere has an extension of fireball detection. FRIPON-Andino is the name of the extension of the FRIPON network to the Andean states Chile, Argentina, and Peru. This is crucial for the detection of these events in the southern skies.

FRIPON-Andino (fcla.cl)

Three Risso's Dolphins saved in Scotland.

Fireballs and whale strandings on the east coast of the USA

Since the May 15th Airburst on the east coast of the America, fireball after fireball was seen, even a daylight meteor over New York that created a sonic boom causing a tremor. See the posts below for events and further information. Note: These are just animal strandings in Massachusetts and do not include surrounding states, which is concerning.

6/28/2024: 146 live dolphins stranded, 37 died, 7 euthanized, 102 survived.

7/05/2024: 4 dead dolphins.

7/06/2024: Dead dolphin.

7/10/2014: Dead Loggerhead turtle this summer.

7/10/2024: Dead Minke Whale.

7/12/2024: Dead Humpback whale, last was seen healthy had the name ‘Lollipop.

7/14/2024: Dead Humpback Whale.

7/18/2024: Dead dolphin (in oil soot by offshore wind vessel). It is not known if this was the cause of the whale's death.

7/19/2024: Unidentified dolphin or small whale found today.

9 stranded, deceased marine wildlife events in Massachusetts in less than a month – New Bedford Guide

Above are the events witnessed and catalogued by the AMS in Massachusetts in June and July. None were recorded in the state in the month before, apart from the event to the top right, a large meteor/airburst on May 15th, out of the activity zone. There have been strandings in the area to the north from Massachusetts into Nova Scotia, which is south of Newfoundland.

Major meteor airburst in Antarctica - 27th largest since records began in 1988

2024, July 20. Antarctica. Airburst. Coordinates: (-73.7, 22.5). Time: 14:08. e = 243, -e = 5.1 or 5,100,000 kg/TNT. Altitude: 38.8 km. Velocity: 30.8 km/s. This is the 27^th largest meteor airburst since NASA records began in 1988. It was the largest this year and was nearly 40 times more powerful than the May 19th Portugal event.

Large fireball in English Channel/Celtic Sea

2024 July 18. Celtic Sea and the English Channel. Fireball. The meteor had electrophonic properties. Time: 20:36. Witnessed in le-de-France, Bretagne, England, Normandie, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire and Wales. This event should be noted as a risk to marine animals. I await further flight duration information before proceeding with a Marine Animal Disturbance alert. The meteor was seen in locations 700km apart. There were more reports of concurrent sound than delayed.

Sir David Attenborough to release new film about oceans

 

By Katie Collier, Surrey Comet

Sir David Attenborough to release new film about oceans | Surrey Comet

Brazil Airburst, fireballs over New York and Australia; and whale dead in the Middle East

2024, July 13. Brazil, State of Piaui, 60 km S.E. of Picos, 4 km from Belem do Piaui, Malhada Grande. Large Meteor Airburst. Coordinates: (-7.4, -41). Time: 03:10. e = 59, -e = 1.5 or 1,500,000 kg/TNT. Exploded over rural farming allotments. Travelling east. Delayed and concurrent sound. This was seen at locations 650 km apart. The sound travelled more than 650 kilometres.  

2024, July 17. Australia, Queensland, Brisbane. Fireball. Time: Evening. Caught on live TV.  

Update: 2024, July 16. USA, New York. A fireball was first sighted at 11:15am near the New Jersey-New York border. Altitude: 49 miles above Upper Bay (east of Greenville Yard). Moving a bit east of north at 34,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended at a steep angle of 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan. Green, yellow and white in colour. Created ground shaking from a low sonic boom.  

2024, July 13. United Arab Emirates, Port of Fujairah. A 20-meter-long whale was found dead three miles from the Port. In 2016, a 15-meter-long whale washed up on Kalba beach, after concluding that it had died after colliding with a large ship.  

South Africa has three humpbacks in one day strand

2024, July 8. South Africa, Cape Town. Meteor. Time: 18:55.  

2024, July 15. South Africa, Schoenmakerskop, Willows Gate 5. It is one of three humpback whale carcasses that stranded on Monday on Eastern Cape shores and one of six that have washed up this winter. Two other humpback carcasses washed ashore at Thyspunt near Oyster Bay and at Kasouga on the Sunshine Coast.

Humpback whale carcass washes ashore at Willows (heraldlive.co.za)

Also: 2024, July 15. Western Australia, Geraldton, Pages Beach. Large whale carcass washes ashore.

Airburst off the coast of Somalia

A Marine Animal Disturbance should be noted for the region. Airbursts in continental shelf regions are particularly worrisome for cetaceans and birdlife that frequent the area. It is difficult to obtain correct whale stranding data from certain parts of Africa due to the animals sourced for food or parts, especially skeletons, taken to sell on the black market. These events are usually cleaned up rather quickly.

2024, July 12. Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa, Somalia, 35km off the coast from the city of Adale, which is 136 km north of the capital city of Mogadishu. Airburst. Time: 00:09. Coordinates: (2.6, 46.6). e = 8.5, -e = 0.26 or 260,000 kg/TNT. Altitude: 41.5 km. Velocity: 22.4 km/s.

Rare whale washes ashore after 24 hours of fireballs

2024, July 3. Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia. Meteor/Fireball. Duration: 4 seconds. Time: 12:03.

2024, July 3. A fireball seen over Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Hawke's Bay, Manawatū-Whanganui, Marlborough, Nelson, Otago, Tasman, Waikato and West Coast on Wednesday, around 08:01 UT.

2024, July 3. Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania. Fireballs seen 11:04 UT. Other fireballs were seen at 6:23pm, followed by the one above at about 9:03pm local time and two more just after 4am.

2024, July 4. New Zealand, South Island, Taiari Mouth. Spade-tooth whale. 5m long. The species has never been seen alive, with only six bodies known to science.  

See the July 3 and June 29 posts.

Extremely rare whale washes ashore in Otago | RNZ News

Photo: Supplied/Department of Conservation

Looking back 30 years ago to the Cachalot (Sperm Whale) stranding in Scotland

Sanday Sperm Whales Stranding Commemoration video. It was only a small part of a larger mass-stranding event that stretched across the North Sea including the Netherlands and Belgium. The true number of deaths will never be known. This European event was a wider mass marine and land disturbance that included the Southern Hemisphere. The reason was the airburst activity that I have written about previously. 

Sanday Sperm Whales Stranding Commemoration (youtube.com)

Massive Caribbean Fireball

2024, July 13. Caribbean Sea, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Large Meteor. Time: around 23:52 UT. Local Time: 19:49. Concurrent and delayed sound heard. Witnessed at locations 200km apart. Lasted 20 seconds. Until further information is gathered on the energy of this event a Marine Animal Disturbance alert should be noted for Venezuela, Columbia and associated Caribbean Islands. The reason is that this meteoroid had electrophonic properties. 

American Meteor Society (amsmeteors.org)

Also: 2024, July 13. Netherlands, Gelderland, Niedersachsen, Noord-Brabant, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Utrecht, Vlaams Gewest and Zuid-Holland. Fireball. Time: around 22:06 UT. Heading into North Sea.

Also: 2024, July 12. USA, Rhode Island, South Shore. A mature female Humpback named “Lollipop” was found dead. On June 1 she was last seen in good apparent health. She was discovered 10 miles offshore.

2012 Peru dolphin die off

2011, January 8. Pacific. Airburst. Time: 19:38. (33.3, -125.8). e = 2.9, -e = 0.1. Altitude: 48km.

2011, February 12. Pacific. Airburst. Time: 11:00. (7.8, -95.3). e = 2, -e = 0.073.

2011, March 23. Pacific. Airburst. Time: 04:16. (-16.8, -85.6). e = 2.2, -e = 0.079.

2011, March 24. Pacific. Airburst. Time: 20:23. (0.6, -127.5) e = 5.8, -e = 0.19. Altitude: 59km.

2011, April 27. Pacific. Airburst. Time: 20:38. (1.4, -126.6). e = 22, -e = 0.61. Altitude: 28.7 km.

2011, August 4. Pacific. Airburst. Time: 07:25. (-40.7, -86.7). e = 2.8, -e = 0.098. Altitude: 63.

2011, October 12. Pacific. Airburst. Time: 07:13. (-26.4, -78.4). e = 3.6, -e = 0.12.

2012, January to April. Peru. Initially, 615 dead dolphins along a 135-kilometre coastline were discovered then 900 were cleared away. The death toll could be as high as 2,800, based on volunteer counts. Peru's massive dolphin die-off was among the largest ever reported worldwide. All of the 20 or so animals examined showed middle-ear hemorrhage and fracture of the ear's periotic bone, lung lesions and bubbles in the blood. A few dolphins at first were discovered every 150 meters, then every 10 or 20 meters. The first account of 24 dead dolphins came on Jan. 21 in Piura on the north coast, just south of the border with Ecuador, the same region where the 1,500 were reported by marine coastal reserve staff on March 10. Another 416 were counted in Piura on March 21. More than 870 were spotted in February and March on beaches in the Lambayeque region, south of Piura. Two species were stranded. About 90 percent are long-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus capensis), which swim close to the surface and had probably migrated south from Central America to feast on the abundance of fish in the nutrient-rich Humboldt Current that sweeps Peru’s coast. The rest are Burmeister’s porpoises (Phocoena spinipinnis), a deepwater species that moves closer to the surface to calve. All the Burmeister’s porpoises were recorded being pregnant or lactating females or calves. Also, since March some 4,000 birds, mostly pelicans and boobies died.

Fireballs (nasa.gov)

The 2018 Cuviers Beaked Dolphin strandings in the Inner Hebredies

In one month, August/September more whales washed ashore than in the previous 10 years. The whales were found dead on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland following several strandings of the animals. Many of the whales were in an advanced state of decomposition. Eleven whales were found dead over one week in August. More than 70 were located on the shores of Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland, 20 whales were found dead in the Western Isles, 16 in Argyll and Bute and two in the Highlands. Twenty stranded in Ireland. One of the whales was found dead in Northern Ireland, and the rest in the Republic of Ireland. Some were found dead along the shores of North Uist and Harris in the Western Isles. Most of the animals that died were Cuvier's and True's beaked whales, which are a deep-diving species.   

2018, May 3. Celtic Sea. Airburst. (46.9, -7.5). Time: 07:23. e = 3.8, -e = 0.13 or 130,000 kg/TNT. Altitude: 39 km. Velocity: 11.5 km/s.

Above is the airburst location near the continental shelf. It is an ideal feeding ground for deep-diving whales. 

Mass stranding in Scotland

2024, July 11. Scotland, Orkney, Tresness Beach on the island of Sanday. A pod of 77 Long Finned Black Dolphins (pilot whales) has died. The pod included males up to seven metres (22ft) long and females, calves and juveniles. See July 6 post. 

77 whales dead after 'biggest mass stranding in decades' in Orkney (bbc.com)

Comets and the upcoming risk for whale strandings

Two meteor showers will increase the risk of whale strandings in the southern hemisphere to high from the rest of July to September. The Delta Aquariids originate from the 96P Machholz comet and the 169P/NEAT comet created the Alpha Capricornids. These align to create a twin peak on July 30 with increased fireball activity, a rare event.

(Photo: P. Horalek/European Southern Observatory, CC BY-NC-SA)  

Meteoroid bounced off the European atmosphere

2024, July 7. Europe, seen in multiple countries. Earth skimming meteoroid dismantled into two objects. Travelling N.W. Time: 00:27UT and 2 seconds later. First object: Velocity: 64.89 km/s, Duration: 9.48 seconds. Coordinates: Beg (47.87, 10.34), (50.82.3.42). Altitude: 109.47 to 109.26 km. Second: Velocity 63.27 km/s. Duration: 4.52 seconds. Coordinates: (49.80, 6.02), (51.11, 2.64). Altitude: 102.70 to 112.66 km. This last one bounced off the atmosphere. The first one travelled through.

Meteor Map – Fireballs Aotearoa

Meteors and more meteors

2024, July 4. Scotland. Meteor. Stream: July xi Arietids. Time: 01:08. Velocity: 70.2 km/s. Duration: 3.92 sec. Coordinates: (57.29, -4.50) (56.96, -8.75). Altitude: 119.8 – 101.5 km. Marine Animal Disturbance for Scotland Region and Northern UK. 

Meteor Map – Fireballs Aotearoa

A rare meteor storm heading to Earth, Canada in for display on Thursday.

Astronomers believe we could be in for a rare meteor storm (yahoo.com)

Dead Humpback in Nova Scotia

2024, July 4. Canada, Nova Scotia, Shubenacadie River. Dead Humpback. It was seen early on in the week and appeared to be fine.

Blake Giroux used a drone to capture an overhead view. (Blake Giroux Photography)

Death of humpback whale in Nova Scotia river raises climate change questions | CBC News

Controlling the narrative

Marine Science regarding whale stranding will suffer if governments aren't forthcoming with factual information.

Transcript: “The amount of information readily available regarding incoming space rocks is diminishing. Critical information is being cut off leaving scientists blindsided. What this entails is that a high number of space rocks that are exploding in the earth's atmosphere are now being secretly classified which means that the general public is unaware of their occurrence, so where do we stand when determining the known numbers frequency and impact intensity of global fireball events.”

The video below is from Skywatch Media News.

Atmospheric Fireball Explosions worsen in 2020, incoming space rocks secretly classified - YouTube

Hong Kong dolphin deaths

2024, July 4. Hong Kong, Pui O Beach on Lantau. Two dolphin carcasses were located on beach. Ocean Park Conservation Foundation is investigating. The foundation said one of the dolphins was a newborn, while the other was a severely decomposed adult of 2.4 metres in length.

Two dead dolphins found on Pui O Beach - RTHK

Fireball in Tasman Sea

A fireball was seen over Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Hawke's Bay, Manawatū-Whanganui, Marlborough, Nelson, Otago, Tasman, Waikato and West Coast on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024, around 08:01 UT. See June 30 post for the Marine Animal Disturbance. It was one of several notable meteors that entered the atmosphere in the last 24 hours with others seen in the southern states of Australia. It was part of a swarm of objects seen at 6:30pm, followed by the one above at about 9pm local time and two more just after 4am. Although unlikely it could be precursor material for an airburst. With limited information concerning Tasmanian atmospheric events, it is almost impossible to ascertain what is happening, however, a watch should be noted for the next few weeks just to be safe. Bass Strait, Southern Ocean, Tasman Sea, Victoria, Tasmania, Flinders, and King Islands.

American Meteor Society (amsmeteors.org)

Whale dead in forest

2024, July 1. Bangladesh, a protected forest of Chonbunia area of M Baliatoli Union of Barguna Sadar Upazila. A dead whale, about 25 feet long, has washed up on the banks of the Payra River in Barguna.

Dead whale washes ashore on Barguna river bank | The Business Standard (tbsnews.net)

Ireland whale death

2024, July 2. Ireland, west Kerry peninsula. Boatmen moved a dead humpback whale floating between Brandon and the Maharees.

Kerry boatmen work together to move dead humpback whale in Brandon area | Irish Independent

Airburst above cetacean feeding grounds

2024, June 28.  Sea of Okhotsk. Airburst. Time: 16:05. Coordinates: (55.1, 141). e = 3.8, -e = 0.13 or 130,000 kg/TNT. Altitude 29.2 km. Velocity: 15.3 km/s.

Humpback whales and orcas are returning to the region but are a feeding/breeding ground for the endangered Bowhead Whales struggling to return to sustainable numbers. There are less than 400 individuals in the Sea of Okhotsk. It is a terrible location for an airburst. The Bol'shoy Shantar Island (Ongachan Bay), is S.W. of this event. A marine animal disturbance should be noted for the region. Belugas are also at risk. The area is home to a marine nature sanctuary so hopefully, observations will ascertain any biological damage quickly.

The Bowheads are struggling in the region because in 2017 an airburst on 23rd of June 2017, in the northern part of the sea had a blast force of 520,000 kg/TNT. 

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