01/12/11 – Ephemeris – The bright planets visible this week
Wednesday, January 12th. The sun will rise at 8:17. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 7 minutes, setting at 5:24. The moon, at first quarter today, will set at 2:11 tomorrow morning.
Lets take a look at the bright planets for this week. Mars is very low and lost in the evening twilight. The planet Jupiter is up in the southwestern sky in the early evening. It is a spectacular sight in a telescope with its four satellites, shifting their positions from night to night, and the cloud bands running in the directions of the satellites. Jupiter is the brightest starlight object in the evening. It’s located below left the Circlet in Pisces now and will set at 11:05 p.m. The ringed planet Saturn will rise at 12:35 a.m. in the east southeast. Venus is brilliant in the morning sky and will rise at 4:43 a.m. in the east southeast. Mercury will rise at 6:44 in the east southeast. Mercury may be seen by about 7: 30 a.m.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 
What was the light that went over Arkansas last night? 1/11/11
I witnessed it driving home from Fort Smith,AR near New Blaine, AR hwy 27 the light appeared to (I am certain) hit the ground near 11 mile marker (4 miles west of mile marker) on hwy 27. about 1/2 mile off highway.
Light was bright as a flare but green hues. Appeared much larger than being reported on local news.
Can Nasa not trace the exact location from satalite?
Help me understand what I witnessed. Thanks, Kim
I Googled “meteor arkansas” and found that the meteor was seen over several states. It’s a fireball. That is it is a meteor bright enough for people to report it to the law and news outlets, and to me. These occur several times a year over the United States. It’s probably a piece of an asteroid that ran into or was run into by the earth.
Even large meteoroids never actually make it to the ground to be picked up as meteorites. And meteors tend to go out, that is no longer emit light, at around 50 miles altitude, and drop unseen from there. One way to tell if a meteorite land near you is to hear a sonic boom. The meteorite will hit the ground only going a couple of hundred miles an hour, as if it were dropped out of an airplane. Fresh meteorites tend to be cold. The heat of entry into the earth’s atmosphere wouldn’t have penetrated the body, the hot material being ablated off as it came in. Check out this story in the LA Times.
Thanks for your interest.