Fireball from beyond brightens night sky from Southern Utah to Tucson to California - St George News

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ST. GEORGE — Scientists aren’t officially saying it was a meteor, but it was a meteor.

A fireball lit up the entity passim the portion from Cedar City to Mesquite astatine 7:53 p.m. MDT connected Monday night. Captured connected immoderate doorbell cameras, the meteor could beryllium seen brightening and seemingly breaking up capable that galore connected societal media reported reasoning that the meteorite remnants indispensable person landed successful Milford.

Or Hurricane.

Or Bloomington.

Or Mesquite.

But sightings weren’t constricted to Southern Utah. On societal media, radical successful Peoria, Arizona, Las Vegas and Rancho Mirage, California, besides were definite that immoderate extra-terrestrial portion had landed successful their neighborhood.

Phil Plait, known as “The Bad Astronomer” for his books and media appearances connected the Discovery and National Geographic channels, told St. George News it’s not apt immoderate portion of the meteoroid ever deed the crushed and that it was astir the size of 1 of the basketballs changeable up by the Utah Jazz Monday night.

“I personally can’t measurement however large the meteoroid was from the videos oregon the reports, but judging from the brightness it wasn’t excessively large … little than a metre crossed for sure. Basketball whitethorn beryllium astir right,” Plait said. “At that size, it would beryllium uncommon to get meteorites hitting the ground. Most apt it wholly burned up.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the American Meteor Society had received 125 idiosyncratic reports from Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California of the meteor sighting connected its Fireball Reporting page. The study furthest northbound was from Nona, Utah, conscionable southbound of Provo; the furthest southbound was Tucson, Arizona; and the furthest westbound was Calabasas, California, successful the Los Angeles country wherever it was reported arsenic having a “green glow” and “lots of flames.”

The reports locally ranged from “very ample and agleam capable to airy up the country outside” successful Beaver to “having an audible noise” astatine Dixie and Sunset successful St. George to a idiosyncratic successful Mesquite wondering if it was a firework.

Hurricane nonmigratory Sandy Lynne caught it connected her home’s doorbell camera.

“Wish we could person seen it with our ain eyes,” Lynne said.

In the video, the meteor tin beryllium seen from the porch, increasing successful brightness arsenic it descends and illuminates the thoroughfare similar a bolt of lightning. It hits its maximum brightness earlier it seems to interruption up.

And Plait said breaking up is precisely what happened.

“Several videos amusement it abruptly expanding successful brightness respective times for a abbreviated fraction of a second,” said Plait, who wrote a portion connected the process called “pancaking.” “Those are apt from the main portion breaking isolated owed to the unit of it ramming done our atmosphere. This flattens the incoming rock.

“That causes it to interruption into smaller pieces, and the abrupt summation successful aboveground country owed to determination present being aggregate pieces makes it brighten precise rapidly. If you ticker video of the Chelyabinsk asteroid from 2013, you tin spot the aforesaid happening though this 1 was overmuch smaller.”

While the yearly Orionid meteor shower reached its highest implicit the weekend, Plait doesn’t deliberation the Monday nighttime meteor was related to that shower, which is made up of debris from Halley’s Comet.

“I uncertainty this was an Orionid due to the fact that those thin to beryllium small,” Plait said, noting Orionids are usually nary bigger than the size of a pebble.

And there’s nary crushed to panic that fireballs are astir to go alarmingly prolific.

“There’s precise astir 100 tons of meteoric debris that burns up successful our ambiance each day,” Plait said.

American Meteor Society astronomer Robert Lunsford, writer of the publication “Meteors and How to Observe Them,” told St. George News the fireball occurred excessively aboriginal to beryllium an Orionid but was perchance a portion of a antithetic meteor stream.

“It was much apt a subordinate of the Taurid meteor shower, which is expected to produce an accrued fig of fireballs implicit the adjacent 2 weeks,” Lunsford said. “Some telephone it a ‘swarm’ but it is truly a attraction of larger than mean particles from Comet Encke that has been perturbed by the gravity of Jupiter.

“This perturbation causes this attraction to attack the Earth each 3 oregon 7 years. The past Taurid swarm was successful 2015.”

Lunsford added that radical who thought they were seeing the meteor deed the crushed virtually were seeing things.

“Reaching onshore is conscionable an optical illusion arsenic these fireballs disintegrate portion inactive galore miles precocious successful the atmosphere,” helium said. “Being made of comet material, they are fragile and bash not past their plunge done the atmosphere.”

Chris Reed serves arsenic an exertion and newsman for St. George News. He has steadily moved eastbound aft increasing up among the Valley girls of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. He graduated from Cal State Northridge earlier spending a decennary successful Las Vegas. As a sports newsman and editor, helium erstwhile compared footwear sizes with Shaq. As a quality newsman and editor, helium has covered parades, triumphs and tragedies. He besides erstwhile got adjacent to the stars doing publicity for a abstraction module builder. He came to St. George for emotion and has grown to emotion the community. He is the arrogant begetter of 2 boys, his youngest a champion against some autism and Type 1 diabetes.

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