A huge fireball streaked across the Denver sky Thursday night, out of the southwest heading northeast, blazing by in a few seconds before exploding in a flash.
The meteor was captured by a network of area cameras that constantly watch the night sky, including a rooftop camera at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
“This one, because of its size, intensity and brightness, it’s really rare and really interesting to scientists,” said Samantha Sands, a program specialist with the museum.
Scientists with NASA contacted to the museum on Friday inquiring about the sighting.
The Geminid meteor shower peaked overnight Wednesday and initial consensus is that Thursday night’s meteor was not part of it.
Astronomists will study various images of the meteor to try to determine whether meteorites — pieces of a meteor that land on earth — touched down, and where they landed. Most meteorites are extremely small, but if found, scientists can determine its composition, typically iron-nickel, which can then lead to discovering where in space the meteor originated. Many people describe meteors as “shooting stars.”
The bright flash seen on Thursday means that the meteor was large, and the fiery displays indicate it was breaking apart, Sands said.
“The shallow entry angle, slow speed, and low elevation…all strongly predict the possibility that meteorites survived to the ground, probably in central Washington County,” said Chris Peterson, of Cloudbait Observatory in Guffey, in an email.
Cloudbait spotted the meteor above the Greenland area, heading in a northeasterly direction. Peterson estimates the meteor exploded over Washington County, about ten miles above the ground, and that it likely released a sonic boom at its burst point.
The museum’s camera captured the meteor at about 7:50 p.m. in the sky south of Denver. A visitor to the museum on Friday told Sands about spotting a “flash” in the sky.
“Meteors streak across the sky all day long, we just can’t see them” because they’re bleached out by sunlight or too small, Sands said.
Thursday’s flash and burst was considerably more brighter than a full moon, Peterson said, categorizing it as a rare “superbolide.”
If star gazers do spot something unusual, they should report it, either to local scientists at observatories and museums, or to the American Meteor Society.
“People reporting what they see is really important,” Sand said. “The more reports we can get, the more scientists can determine where it was going and what it is.”
