Once again, some of those living in the US witnessed a huge fireball above their heads during night time. The imposing celestial body ignited more and more as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. The impressive show was spotted and filmed by a person from the Californian city of Oroville, and CBS News passed the footage further.
We can all consider ourselves lucky enough to witness the video of the celestial event, while we’re not sure that the cosmic object didn’t hit the surface. It posed some impressive dimensions, and, God forbid, could have caused some damage. Let’s hope that everyone’s ok!
The cosmic object is certainly a fireball. It’s still a meteor, only that it’s an exceptionally bright one. That’s the definition of a fireball, in simple terms. A meteor needs to surpass a certain brightness to qualify. The fireball that makes the subject of this article represents the outcome of the annual Taurid meteor shower (aka the Taurids). This meteor shower is expected to lead to the emergence of several fireballs across the sky. But even so, surely nobody can remain unmoved by what flew above the surface of Oroville.
The Taurids meteor shower, on the other hand, is closely linked to the Encke comet, a cosmic object that performs a full orbit around the Sun in a bit more than three years. For those unaware, comets and asteroids orbit the Sun in a similar way planets do.
Encke is considered a small comet, although it has some imposing dimensions compared to pretty much any asteroid. The core of Encke measures 4,8 kilometers in diameter. In other words, we should all be grateful that the comet doesn’t orbit close to Earth!
