1860 Great Meteor

{{Short description|1=Meteor procession seen across the United States}}

{{Use American English|date=July 2016}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2016}}

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|image_name = Frederic Church Meteor of 1860.jpg

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|caption = Oil painting by Frederic Church

|date = {{start date|1860|07|20}}

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|place = United States

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The 1860 Great Meteor procession occurred on July 20, 1860. It was an extremely rare meteoric phenomenon reported from locations across the United States.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1860/08/07/news/another-great-meteor.html | title=Another Great Meteor | work=The New York Times | date=7 August 1860 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502070209/http://www.nytimes.com/1860/08/07/news/another-great-meteor.html | archivedate=2013-05-02 | url-status=live }}{{cite web | url=http://toto.lib.unca.edu/WNC_natural_disasters/meteor_1860.htm | title=The Great Meteor of 1860 | work=Appleton's Journal of Popular Culture | publisher=The Heritage of Western North Carolina | date=7 January 1871 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060908041555/http://toto.lib.unca.edu/WNC_natural_disasters/meteor_1860.htm | archivedate=September 8, 2006 | url-status=dead | access-date=February 15, 2013 | df=mdy-all }}

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.{{cite web | url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100722.html | title=Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Meteor of 1860 by Frederic Church | work=Frederic Church | publisher=NASA | date=22 July 2010 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100722090737/http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100722.html | archivedate=2010-07-22 | url-status=live }}{{cite web | url=http://www.registerstar.com/news/article_ea801ee5-6c5a-57f1-94ed-68fe35ee7fc3.html | title=Church, Whitman both recorded an 1860 meteor | work=Register Star | date=21 July 2010 }} It is believed that this was the event referred to in the poem Year of Meteors, 1859-60, by Walt Whitman.{{cite web | url=https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/whitman-mystery-solved/3 | title=Images of Harper's Weekly front page story | work=New Scientist | date=1 June 2010 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100605075133/http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/whitman-mystery-solved/3 | archivedate=2010-06-05 | url-status=live }}{{cite web | url=http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2010/06/02/4448882-150-year-old-meteor-mystery-solved | title=150-year-old meteor mystery solved | work=NBC News | date=2 June 2010 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121108194834/http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2010/06/02/4448882-150-year-old-meteor-mystery-solved | archivedate=2012-11-08 | url-status=live }} In 2010, 150 years later, it was determined to be an Earth-grazing meteor procession.{{cite web | url=http://www.txstate.edu/news/news_releases/news_archive/2010/06/YearOfMeteors060110.html | title=Texas State astronomers solve Walt Whitman meteor mystery | work=Texas State University | date=28 May 2010 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111019041851/http://www.txstate.edu/news/news_releases/news_archive/2010/06/YearOfMeteors060110.html | archivedate=2011-10-19 | url-status=live }}