The 1860 Great Meteor procession occurred on July 20, 1860. It was an extremely rare meteoric phenomenon reported from locations across the United States.[1][2]

1860 Great Meteor
Oil painting by Frederic Church
DateJuly 20, 1860 (1860-07-20)
LocationUnited States

American landscape painter Frederic Church saw and painted a spectacular string of fireball meteors across the Catskill evening sky, an extremely rare Earth-grazing meteor procession.[3][4] It is believed that this was the event referred to in the poem Year of Meteors, 1859-60, by Walt Whitman.[5][6] In 2010, 150 years later, it was determined to be an Earth-grazing meteor procession.[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Another Great Meteor". The New York Times. August 7, 1860. Archived from the original on May 2, 2013.
  2. ^ "The Great Meteor of 1860". Appleton's Journal of Popular Culture. The Heritage of Western North Carolina. January 7, 1871. Archived from the original on September 8, 2006. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  3. ^ "Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Meteor of 1860 by Frederic Church". Frederic Church. NASA. July 22, 2010. Archived from the original on July 22, 2010.
  4. ^ "Church, Whitman both recorded an 1860 meteor". Register Star. July 21, 2010.
  5. ^ "Images of Harper's Weekly front page story". New Scientist. June 1, 2010. Archived from the original on June 5, 2010.
  6. ^ "150-year-old meteor mystery solved". NBC News. June 2, 2010. Archived from the original on November 8, 2012.
  7. ^ "Texas State astronomers solve Walt Whitman meteor mystery". Texas State University. May 28, 2010. Archived from the original on October 19, 2011.