For those of you in Wisconsin, apparently there was a heckuva meteor that lit up the skies there around 10:00 p.m. local time April 14, an hour ago as I write this. WKOW has reports and some great shots of it. It was terrifically bright, and there are reports of sonic booms being heard. Some reports are saying that was the sound of impact, but I doubt it; it’s far more likely to have been from the supersonic passage of the rock through the air.

If you have links, reports, or pictures, feel free to leave a comment. If you have good measurements of it (including where it was on the sky with some precision) then report it to the International Meteor Organization, which can help lead scientists to find meteorites if there are any. It also allows scientists to estimate the orbit of the object, which can help tie it to known objects like asteroids or comets.

I have to add this: I found out about it because an old post of mine about a fireball over Wisconsin in 2007 suddenly was getting a lot of traffic and new comments. Someone must have linked to it (currently I don’t have the stats so I’m not sure who did, but thanks whoever it was!) and people are leaving great reports about it.

Anyway, hopefully folks’ll find this post and leave comments here. Welcome!