Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Several eyewitnesses reported seeing a fireball streaking across the Texas sky Saturday night – the latest in a long line of such reported sightings over the past week, most of which occurred in the eastern US.

According to Mashable reporter Brittany Levine, National Weather Services offices throughout the state received reports from residents who had witnesses what is believed to be a meteor. NWS forecaster Lara Keys told Levine that the fireball was spotted around 8:45 pm CT from locations ranging from Corpus Christi to Laredo to Lubbock – a stretch of more than 500 miles.

Keys said that those who witnessed the meteor described it as “a big, bright shooting star,” while Jim Spencer of KXAN TV in Austin said viewers from throughout Central Texas had reported seeing an object they described as “lighting up the sky,” and some viewers reported seeing two objects, as well as a greenish-blue tail believed to be the meteor breaking up.

Spencer added that reports indicated the meteor was “likely a small rock or piece of space debris,” and that the Maverick County sheriff’s department had reported the ground shook in the region due to the meteor landing at approximately 8:45 pm. However, he added that the National Weather Service has been unable to locate any confirmed meteorite debris, and that the shaking might have actually be the result of a sonic boom.

A San Antonio motorist was able to capture video footage of the object using his or her in-car dash camera – a video which has been uploaded to YouTube. The footage shows a bright green fireball and its tail moving in a downward trajectory, an event which the user said took place between 8:43 pm and 8:44 pm. KXAN viewers who had viewed the clip said it was the same object they observed, Spencer said.



Last Monday, more than 700 eyewitnesses from Georgia and South Carolina and as far north as Ohio and Michigan contacted the American Meteor Society reporting they had witnessed a bright fireball. That event took place around 6:23pm EST, and many of those reporting the fireball told the society the object was vivid green in color.

That fireball was preceded earlier in the day by a morning one which appeared over Arkansas at 9:30am CST and was followed by one spotted over Chicago at about 6:30 p.m. CST, according to reports. The Arkansas fireball was believed to be genuine, and was also spotted over Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama, according to the American Meteor Society, but the Chicago one was a different story – it turned out to be a promotional stunt by the Red Bull energy drink company.

As Josh Barrett of SpaceAlabama.com and WAAY-TV in Huntsville explained last week, the Earth was in the process of traveling through a field of debris left over from the comet Encke, which causes the Taurid meteor shower. The Taurids, he said, are characteristically made up of larger comet pieces, meaning they burn larger and brighter as they travel throughout the sky at speeds of up to 70,000 miles an hour.

The first meteors in the northern Taurid shower were witnessed on October 31, Bill Cooke, the head of the Marshall Space Flight Center’s Meteoroid Environments Office, told Space.com last week. They were expected to last through the weekend, and according to Levine, the American Meteor Society reported that Saturday night was expected to be a peak time for the meteor showers, which were believed to be responsible for at least one of last week’s fireballs.

—–

Follow redOrbit on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

Comments

comments