KTVN Channel 2 - Reno Tahoe News Weather, Video - Midnight Meteor Streaks Across Western Skies
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Scientists are buzzing about a streaking meteor that flashed across parts of the Western sky.
Seth Jarvis, director of the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, says the meteor that flew by just after midnight Tuesday was probably about the size of an oven and traveling at about 80,000 mph.
He says the fireball was likely visible from several Intermountain West states.
The fireball roughly coincided with the annual Leonid meteor shower. It happens when the earth passes through the debris trail of the comet Tempel-Tuttle. "As the earth plows through that at 20,000 miles per hour, those burn up in our atmosphere and sometimes they are small like a grain of sand. We've seen them; they are impressive. Sometimes, they are bigger and are very impressive, like what we saw last night," says Dan Ruby of the Fleischmann Planetarium at the University of Nevada.
Surveillance cameras captured the streaking meteor about 100 miles above the Earth.
Jarvis says it likely broke up before reaching the ground.
Scientists will use video footage to get a better idea about the fireball's trajectory, speed and location.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
