Categories: Meteorites

Video of Utah Fireball

Early Nov. 18th, eyewitnesses reported an explosion in the atmosphere above Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho in the western United States. Some said the fireball “turned night into day” and produced shock waves that shook the ground when it exploded just after midnight Mountain Standard Time. Infrasound recordings of the blast suggest a small asteroid hitting Earth’s atmosphere and exploding with an energy of 0.5 to 1 kiloton of TNT. As the sun rose in the morning, remnants of the explosion were visible as noctilucent clouds over the region. The best video of the extremely bright event was just recently released, from the University of Utah’s Eccles Observatory.

Scientists say that although the fireball appeared during the Leonid meteor shower, it was not a Leonid. Experts liken the event to the Park Forest fireball of 2003, which scattered dozens of meteorites across a suburb of Chicago. Meteorites are likely from this fireball as well. Check out this page on Spaceweather.com for a picture gallery of the event, as well as a nocticulent cloud gallery. Plus, stay tuned for developing information about any meteorites found in the possible fall zone.

Sources: Spaceweather.com, Deseret News

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

Flowing Martian Water was Protected by Sheets of Carbon Dioxide

Mars' ancient climate is one of our Solar System's most perplexing mysteries. The planet was…

14 hours ago

Japan Launches the First Wooden Satellite to Space

Space debris, which consists of pieces of spent rocket stages, satellites, and other objects launched…

15 hours ago

You Can Build a Home Radio Telescope to Detect Clouds of Hydrogen in the Milky Way

If I ask you to picture a radio telescope, you probably imagine a large dish…

19 hours ago

A Space Walking Robot Could Build a Giant Telescope in Space

The Hubble Space Telescope was carried to space inside the space shuttle Discovery and then…

2 days ago

New Report Details What Happened to the Arecibo Observatory

In 1963, the Arecibo Observatory became operational on the island of Puerto Rico. Measuring 305…

2 days ago

We Understand Rotating Black Holes Even Less Than We Thought

The theory of black holes has several mathematical oddities. Recent research shows our understanding of…

3 days ago