A CBS 8 viewer captured video of the mysterious streak along El Cajon Boulevard in City Heights.
We haven't heard of an explanation for the 'fireball' yet, but a few residents called saying they saw it and that it was a meteor.
Fire in the Sky
A CBS 8 viewer captured video of the mysterious streak along El Cajon Boulevard in City Heights.
We haven't heard of an explanation for the 'fireball' yet, but a few residents called saying they saw it and that it was a meteor.
© SMART Project (screen capture)
The analysis carried out by the SMART Project PI José María Madiedo (University of Huelva), points that this fireball was generated due to the impact with our atmosphere of a Perseid meteoroid.The fireball started at an altitude of about 126 km over Granada province,moving southwestward and having a final altitude of about 72 km over Málaga province.
The event was recorded from fireball detection station that SMART Project operate at Calar Alto, La Sagra, La Hita, Sevilla and Huelva.
© spainmaps.es
File photo of meteor
Fireballs are meteors that have a glowing tail. They are officially rated fireballs if the glowing tail is brighter than Venus.
Mike Murray, astronomer at the Delta College Planetarium, says the Perseid meteor shower gives us the best chance all year to see fireballs. Fireballs are created when the larger meteors take a longer time to burn up and disappear. By larger, Murray says the fireball meteors are still only about the size of a pea.
NASA has a camera network of 15 cameras pointing at the sky. These cameras can see and record the fireballs. Groups of these cameras are located in the Southeast U.S., the Northeast U.S. and the Southwest U.S.
© NASA
The space rock, composed of compacted ice and dust, was part of the 'Kreutz' family of comets, according to NASA.
This 'sungrazer' group of comets follows a related orbit in our solar system after breaking off from a huge comet centuries ago. Dozens have already been recorded evaporating in the solar atmosphere.
© NASA
"Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of August 11-12," Bill Cooke, from NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama, said on Tuesday. Cooke noted that under perfect conditions, we will be treated to up to 200 meteors every hour.
The "outburst" the NASA man is referring to means this year's cosmic dance is set to be far more crowded than usual. The last time the event happened on such a scale was 2009.
The Perseid meteor shower wows spectators with its swift and extremely bright meteors, traveling at a speed of 60km per second. A Perseid meteor is a small piece of debris left in the wake of the ancient Swift-Tuttle comet, which orbits the sun every 133 years. Despite these visits into the inner solar system being so rare, each of them gives off trillions of comet particles. When Earth passes through this trail of debris, the particles enter the planet's atmosphere and break up in bright specs of light.
© Chris Peterson, Cloudbait Observatory, Research Associate, Denver Museum of Nature and Science
The event happened at 3:23 a.m. and was captured by two cameras in Colorado, one mounted on the roof of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the other at the Cloudbait Observatory in Guffey.
"By combining the data from both cameras, I can determine that the fireball exploded over Cheyenne, Wyo., at a height of 105 km (roughly 65 miles)," said Chris Peterson with Cloudbait Observatory. Peterson describes the meteor as being unusually large with a brightness similar to the full Moon and having a large breakup in mid-flight, leaving enough material to continue burning afterward.
"Usually explosions like this are terminal, completely disrupting the body and leaving nothing to continue," said Peterson. It's not known if the meteor was part of the Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower, currently in progress, or if it had a different origin.
CBS4 Photojournalist Rob McClure happened to see it and said it lasted about 10 seconds.
Peterson is looking for anyone else who witnessed the meteor. You can click here to file a report.
Video footage is available here.
© YouTube/kevinizooropa (screen capture)
Although Capricornids Alfa is not a meteor shower well known and is not intense, it can produce bright meteor. A curious fact is that gradually the area of waste comet 169P / NEAT will be in the future closer to the path where the Earth orbits the sun. Both, estimated could produce "meteor storms", ie showers very intense meteor from the year 2220 so our distant descendants will be those who will enjoy such intense spectacle of nature.
Meanwhile, we can make do with seeing a few that will be visible in the next few nights. On these nights some related to light rain and Alfa Delta Aquarid meteors will be Capricornids while in mid-August will be the Perseids, which is anticipated this could be more active than usual year, the SAC said.
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© Flickr/ jpstanley
Darting across the skies of California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Colorado, the object disintegrated into numerous chunks before disappearing. The relatively slow speed of the fireball — it took nearly a minute to cross the sky — ruled out a natural origin, experts said.
The video above was captured by Matt Holt in Utah County, Utah.
© KCRA viewer Daniel Miles
KCRA viewer Daniel Miles shared this photo on Wednesday, July 27, 2016.
KCRA viewer Daniel Miles shared this photo on Wednesday, July 27, 2016.
According to NASA, the Delta Aquarids meteor shower is expected to peak Thursday and Friday. It is also possible the streak was caused by space junk. NORAD and U.S. Strategic Command said they did not know what the streak of light was.
No other details were available.
Comment: Electrically charged meteors can travel very slowly and tend to disintegrate and shed as they do.
Comment: Another video recorded on the same day: