© Twitter via @ohheyfellaA mysterious light appeared in the early evening sky over the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday.
A mysterious light with a twisting, smoking tail appeared in the early evening sky over the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday, but local astronomers had a scientific explanation.
It was a meteor, according to the University of California's Lick Observatory near San Jose.
"A bright meteor was visible in the skies over the Bay Area shortly after sunset this evening, leaving a bright trail that was visible for many minutes in the western sky," the observatory wrote on Facebook.
Initial reports of the meteor sighting came in around 5:30 p.m., the Bay Area's FOX 2
reported.
Twitter exploded with photos and comments about the glowing phenomenon.
"@NASA white blaze in sky what is dis? Maybe a plane?" user Jose Armando Solis tweeted.
Jeremy Thomas said the light
"flashed bright green for a few seconds as it fell and appeared to split up," previously adding that "something fell out of the sky."
Comment: Most interesting. Here's video footage:
Note that the news presenter described the glowing trail it left behind as a 'noctilucent cloud'. She's right, kind of. This kind of trail is itself a relatively novel phenomenon. Both rocket trails from outgoing take-offs and meteor trails from incoming space debris leave such glowing trails down on a regular basis now.
That's why meteor/comet fragment trails are so easily (and happily) conflated with rocket launches, and why we have such a hard time telling them apart...
See also:
Comment: Most interesting. Here's video footage:
Note that the news presenter described the glowing trail it left behind as a 'noctilucent cloud'. She's right, kind of. This kind of trail is itself a relatively novel phenomenon. Both rocket trails from outgoing take-offs and meteor trails from incoming space debris leave such glowing trails down on a regular basis now.
That's why meteor/comet fragment trails are so easily (and happily) conflated with rocket launches, and why we have such a hard time telling them apart...
See also: