Space Rocks!
Have you ever wonder what a meteoroid looks like that has exploded in Earth's atmosphere?
I took this original photo on my iPhone around 5am on June 2nd, 2016 after hearing an extremely loud BOOM in the early morning hours.
I then did some research to see what would make such a visual display in the sky. I found an article from the American Meteor Society that confirmed with over 340 reports that it was in fact a meteor. The fireball was mainly observed from Arizona but witnesses as far as California, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Nevada also reported the event according to the AMS.
An article from the Washington Post stated NASA estimated the meteor was traveling at over 40,000 mph. In the article Bill Cooke, a meteor expert at the agency said it was the brightest meteor ever observed by NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network. The flash was estimated to be 10 times brighter than a full moon.
NASA has a dedicated office for tracking such phenomena called Planetary Defense. Since 1998 the agency has discovered more than 14,000 near-Earth asteroids since it began detecting them.
How big is a meteor that makes such a loud noise and bright display?
The meteoroid that caused this event was only 5 feet in diameter weighing a "few tons", said NASA. In comparison, In February 2013 a 65 foot wide meteoroid shot into the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, causing nearly 1,500 injuries and damaging thousands of buildings, the Post article went on to say.
Thankfully, no injuries were reported that I could find from the recent meteor event I observed.
What are the differences between an Asteroid, Comet, Meteoroid, Meteor and Meteorite?
- Asteroid : A relatively small, inactive, rocky body orbiting the Sun.
- Comet : A relatively small, at times active, object whose ices can vaporize in sunlight forming an atmosphere (coma) of dust and gas and, sometimes, a tail of dust and/or gas.
- Meteoroid : A small particle from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun.
- Meteor : The light phenomenon which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star.
- Meteorite : A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth's atmosphere and lands upon the Earth's surface.
In conclusion, it was fascinating to eye witness the smoke formation in the early morning sky from the shooting star.
Reference Articles:
http://www.amsmeteors.org/2016/06/bright-fireball-over-arizona/