EarthSky
Bolide
An exceptionally bright fireball, usually one that explodes.
A bolide is a meteor bright enough to be startling — brighter than Venus by convention — and typically one that fragments with an audible bang. Government sensors designed to watch for other things detect the larger ones worldwide, which is where the fireball catalogue on this site comes from. They are far more common than people expect: something releasing a kiloton of energy hits the atmosphere roughly once a year, and almost all of it happens over ocean or empty land, unseen.
Where it has come up lately
NASA
ScienceDaily
EarthSky
NASA Science
Universe Today
Related terms
Near-Earth object
An asteroid or comet whose orbit brings it inside 1.3 astronomical units of the Sun.
Asteroid and comet
Rock that stays rock, and ice that grows a tail when it gets warm.
Coma and tail
A comet's atmosphere, and the two separate tails the Sun pushes off it.
Oort cloud
A shell of icy bodies at the edge of the Sun's influence, inferred rather than observed.
Questions
What is Bolide?
An exceptionally bright fireball, usually one that explodes.
Why does it matter?
Government sensors designed to watch for other things detect the larger ones worldwide, which is where the fireball catalogue on this site comes from. They are far more common than people expect: something releasing a kiloton of energy hits the atmosphere roughly once a year, and almost all of it happens over ocean or empty land, unseen.