People in more than a dozen states spotted a fireball on Monday night. According to our news partner WGN-TV, several people in the Chicagoland area observed them. The American Meteor Society is collecting reports of the meteors.
James Spann, Chief Meteorologist at ABC33/40 in Birmingham, Alabama, shares this note from Bill Cooke in the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville:
"The annual Taurid meteor shower is going on right now, and we are seeing a decent number of fireballs in our meteor cameras. Folks should not be surprised if they see a bright meteor or fireball over the next few nights.
In addition to the daylight fireball seen in the SE [Sunday morning], there was another bright event seen in the Virginias, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Georgia at around 6:20 PM EST [Monday]. An hour later, another fireball was reported over Chicago. The latter was particularly slow moving and may have been space junk - it will be a bit before we have a better idea.
Taurid meteors are fragments of Comet Encke, a 3 mile wide chunk of ice and rock that circles the Sun every 3.3 years. These fragments can be fairly large (which explains why they produce such bright meteors), and the old Apollo seismometers actually registered minute tremors from Taurid meteor striking the Moon."
So keep your eyes peeled for additional meteor sightings in the next few days. If you catch a glimpse, let us know here at News 8!
-Meteorologist Eric Sorensen