fireball

 

very bright meteor leaving a trail in the sky that can remain visible for several minutes; often a distinct sound, perhaps caused by very low frequency radio waves, is associated with it. A bolide (bō'līd) is a fireball that explodes in the air because of thermal stresses created when it passes through the earth's atmosphere.

Fireball is often used in reference to a large explosion or burst of fire. Fireball can also refer to:

In science:

• A bolide, a meteor brighter than Venus (≈apparent magnitude -5).
  • Glowworm (astronomy), the trails left by bolide fireballs and sometimes followed by a loud noise
• In a nuclear explosion, the volume of air around the bomb that is heated to incandescence; see also Mike Fireball
• A "primordial fireball," a term coined by P.J.E. Peebles to describe the universe during the first 300,000 years after the Big Bang
• The hot volume that is created when large particles are collided together at an energy that is high enough to create quark-gluon plasma in Quantum chromodynamics.

In games:

• Fireball (pinball), a pinball machine released by Bally in 1972
• An archetypal magic (gaming) effect in fantasy role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, it is typically a magical sphere of fire that explodes on impact
• In a versus fighting game, a colloquial term for a number of ranged projectile attacks
  • A Hadouken, the original attack that gained the name, from the Street Fighter series
• A Fire Flower, which allows characters in the Super Mario Bros. series of video games to shoot fireballs
• Fireball Island, a 1986 Milton Bradley board game
• Fire Ball Sport, a game played with a tennis ball and lighter fluid, Scorching good fun!

In engineering:

• The Ryan FR Fireball, a World War II-era United States aircraft made by the Ryan Aeronautical Company
• Fireball (dinghy), a type of sailing boat
• The McMaster Engineering Fireball, the official symbol of the Faculty of Engineering and the Engineering Society at McMaster University

In fiction:

• Fireball XL5, a British television series made in the 1960s
• Ball of Fire, a 1941 comedy film starring Gary Cooper
• "Fireball", a major character in the animated television series Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs
• "Fireball", one of the "stalkers" from the movie The Running Man
• A character in the British comic book Bullet (comic) (that was later absorbed into the comic Warlord)
• Fireball (Charmed), a fictional demonic power in the television show Charmed

In music:

• "Great Balls of Fire," a song by Jerry Lee Lewis
• Great Balls of Fire (film), a movie biography of Jerry Lee Lewis
• The Fireballs, a rock and roll band of the 1950s and 1960s, also known as Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs.
• Fireballs, a psychobilly band from Melbourne, Australia.
• Fireball (album), the sixth studio album released by the British hard rock band Deep Purple in 1971
  • "Fireball (song)," a Deep Purple song on the album of the same name
• "Fireball (B'z song)", the 21st single by Japanese band B'z
• Fireball Zone, an album from Ric Ocasek

Fireball can also refer to:

• Fireball Roberts, a highly-regarded NASCAR driver
  • The Fireball Run, an American road rally event named after Fireball Roberts
• Atomic Fireballs, hot, cinnamon-flavored hard candies
• A Canadian cinnamon-flavoured whiskey produced by Dr. McGillicuddy's
• An illegal wrestling move where someone throws a quick burning piece of paper into someone else's face
• The Remington XP-100, also known as the ".221 Remington Fireball", the highest velocity production handgun cartridge

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