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takyon writes:

Fireball that streaked across Phoenix sky was a meteor, astronomers say

Astronomers say the bright light that streaked across the night sky Tuesday was "almost certainly" a meteor. The city of Phoenix captured the illumination on one of its observation cameras and posted it to Twitter. In the video, a large, glowing bulb appears in the top-right frame and then fades out in three seconds. A smaller light can be seen in the lower portion of the frame, off in the horizon. It happened around 8:30 p.m.

[...] "Given the speed and everything, this was almost certainly a meteor rather than a piece of space junk," said Laurence Garvie, curator of Arizona State University's Center for Meteorite Studies. Specifically, the meteor was a "bolide" — a type of fireball that explodes in a bright terminal flash, according to the American Meteor Society. "This thing wasn't huge. I'm going to guess about 5 feet across. It broke up quite quickly," Garvie said.

Four fireball meteors flashed across the sky over the U.S. and Europe on Tuesday night (archive)

Three other meteors kept the American Meteor Society and the International Meteor Organization very busy on Tuesday night. At 8:40 p.m., a fireball lit up the sky over southern Ohio. Later in the night, two meteors zoomed over Europe — one over Germany and the other over France. More than 1,300 people sent reports to the organizations, making last night the busiest night they've ever had since the online reporting forms were launched.

It looks like the fireballs were at least somewhat related — the Taurid meteor shower peaked on Saturday, and Taurid meteors are still shooting across the sky. "Associated with the comet Encke, the Taurids are actually two separate showers, with a Southern and a Northern component," the American Meteor Society wrote on Wednesday morning. "Both branches of the Taurids are most notable for colorful fireballs and are often responsible for an increased number of fireball reports from September through November."

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