non-fiction

In the article “Fireballs in the Sky are Not Exclusive to Siberia“, the author, Andy Newman, wants the reader to know that the meteor that landed in Syria was not as rare as people often think. In the New York region, many meteors and meteorites have landed, especially in the past few hundred years, and people may not notice them as much because they watch TV and spend time with electronics more and more. He also explains that sometimes the meteor that is sighted is found to be manmade, or fake. But there have been many accounts of real meteors in the sky and people finding them in their car or even living room in Brooklyn, and other nearby cities. Andy Newman proves his point by having actual accounts in quotes to show that people actually saw meteors. One account that was mentioned said: ‘“I was standing with a friend in Thirty-fourth-street, near the southwest corner of Madison-avenue, when we observed a luminous body rising rapidly from behind the houses on the southerly side of the street.”’ This makes the reader understand that people actually saw these meteors and many of them were real. Another example of this would be in an article published in Utica, New York. It said: “This morning at 1:40, the most beautiful meteor seen in this vicinity for years flashed across the northern sky nearly from horizon to horizon.” Another way that Newman proves his point is when he describes that a cosmochemist said “I just think that people aren’t as in touch with the natural world as they used to be and that includes meteorites.” This helps show how new technology is hurting people’s knowledge of the world and nature.

Andy Newman hopes that the reader will be more interested in meteors and their history, but also feel that they are not so rare and that they happen almost every day. Towards the beginning of the article, he says, “The New York region has seen more than its share of meteors and meteorites”. That means that there have been many sightings in the New York region alone, imagine the number of meteors that have landed in the world. That is probably a lot more than people expect. To further show that that is what Newman wants his readers to feel, he titles the article based off of this idea. “Fireballs in the Sky are Not Exclusive to Siberia” is pretty straightforward and the reader already knows how Andy Newman wants them to feel.

I definitely got the message from this article. I was one of those people who found what happened in Syria “improbable and exotic”. But this article made me realize that where I live, there have been many meteors. What shocked me the most was that even though landings occur often, especially in New York, I have never seen one, or even heard of a meteor landing. This article has most incredibly shaped the way that I think about meteors because I had no idea how often they land on earth. But thinking about it more makes me realize that it makes sense. There are billions of rocks flying around space and earth is not a very small target. It is understandable that meteor landings occur so often. I would love to know more about the statistics about how often they occur and where meteors most often land.