The crimson glare of the rockets was not the only thing that lit up the Montana sky over the holiday weekend. The Montana Learning Center (MLC) recorded their strongest fireball to date on July 3.
Around 4:14 a.m. local time, the atmospheric phenomenon was photographed in the skies above Canyon Ferry. It was bright enough to see their own shadow on the ground as if it were daytime.
When a meteor, also known as a shooting or falling star, is larger than a millimeter in diameter, it is called a fireball. The meteor's size determines the size of the flash in the sky.
The cosmic pebble that entered the atmosphere on July 3 was probably large enough to make it all the way down to Earth.
"Meteorites, the ones that we track, are usually about the size of a pebble. This guy is literally larger than a basketball. It is that kind of rock," MLC Executive Director Ryan Hannahoe told KTVH.
Meteor Seen Flying Over Idaho At 18,000 Miles Per Hour
MLC captures and tracks fireballs and other meteors with its All Sky Fireball Camera System. The system can provide a 3D atmospheric trajectory of meteors, as well as their velocity, magnitude, and pre-atmospheric mass estimation for the meteoroid, as well as predict the meteoroid's orbit before it hits Earth. According to the readings per Daily Mail, the July 3 fireball was going at about 18,000 miles per hour.
Fireballs are not uncommon, the same Daily Mail report quoted American Meteor Society, with thousands occurring every day. The vast majority, though, go unnoticed. Although many go unseen, such as those that occur during the day or over the ocean. More individuals can see the atmospheric event because to MLC's tracking technology.
A station in Idaho picked up the Saturday fireball, which means they will be able to figure out the meteor's entry orbit and GPS coordinates for where it may have landed.
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Meteorites are also the planet's oldest rocks, with the oldest known meteorite dating back to 7 billion years ago. That means it is over 2 billion years older than the sun.
Netizens React On Idaho Fireball
Nonetheless, this explosion raised some eyebrows in the YouTube comments section of another video from Idaho.
One user stated unequivocally that, that was a Transformer on its way to Earth. The same netizen hoped it was an autobot.
"Nah, that was just Mark Zuckerberg's family coming in for a visit," joked another.
'That was baby Superman entering Earth's atmosphere,' Kiki Rose wrote.
There are so many amazing jokes in the comment section, another person commented. "You guys rock," saying almost certainly with a pun.
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