CAUGHT ON TAPE: Meteor Streaks Across Utah Sky

Salt Lake City, UT—A streaking fireball briefly illuminated parts of the Utah sky to daylight-level conditions early on Wednesday, surveillance footage showed.

The video from outside security cameras at the University of Utah’s Milford Observatory shows a blinding flash of light around 12:07 a.m., followed by clear images of the object streaking away.

Although it’s too early to say definitively how large the object was and how fast it was going, Seth Jarvis, the director of the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City estimated that it was about the size of an oven and was travelling at about 80,000 MPH.

It broke through the Earth’s atmosphere and was probably around 100 miles above the ground when it became visible, he said.

It almost certainly broke up before it reached the ground, he said.

Patrick Wiggins, a volunteer with NASA’s ambassador program, was sitting in his home observatory near Tooele when he saw the bright flash through his closed curtains.

Several minutes later, he said he heard a sonic boom.

Utah scientists on Wednesday said it was likely a meteor associated with the annual Leonid meteor shower.

Dave Kieda, the chairman of the school’s department of physics and astronomy, said meteor sightings aren’t uncommon, but to see one this large, and to get much of it on tape, was unusual.

Scientists with expertise in meteors will use the university’s footage to help estimate its size and trajectory.