Mysterious fireball lights up sky over California, videos show. ‘Did you see that?’
A mysterious fireball blazed across the night sky over Southern California and Nevada, videos show.
Forty-three people reported seeing the fireball at 10:44 p.m Saturday, Nov. 23, the American Meteor Society reported.
Sightings ranged from Santa Maria to San Diego in California and Sandy Valley in Nevada, near the California border, the society said.
Videos show a bright green fireball that appears to be heading down, followed by a flash of light.
“Did you see that?” a passenger asks the driver in a dash cam video.
“We saw it too ! It was crazy how big and green it was,” read a comment on the video.
“That is a bright one!” read a comment on another video.
The American Meteor Society did not offer a possible explanation for the fireball.
“Meteoroids are space rocks that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids,” NASA said. When the rocks hit the atmosphere of a planet, they become meteors and burn up.
They’re also known as shooting stars or fireballs, NASA said.
NASA reports about 48.5 tons of “meteoritic material’ falls on Earth every day . That’s roughly one-third the weight of the Statue of Liberty.
The Leonid meteor shower peaked over California on Nov. 17 and Nov. 18, McClatchy News reported.