(Credit: Travis Archuleta)
The football-shaped meteor was seen by numerous people in the North Penn and Indian Valley Monday before 8 p.m.
Goodness, gracious, great ball of fire,
North Wales resident Travis Archuleta was heading northwest on Welsh Road Monday night, right before the American Star Diner in Montgomery Township, around 7:45, when something celestial caught his eye and was captured on his dash cam.
A football-shaped ball of fire, with a green tint and a burning tail, illuminated the night sky, before fizzing out and fading away.
When Archuleta shared his fireball video on Facebook, others reported witnessing the same astronomical event, including one person in Sellersville.
What was captured on Archuleta's camera was not a UFO or other alien device, but rather a meteor from the Northern Taurids meteor shower that exploded like fireworks in the night sky overnight Monday into Tuesday, according to NASA. The meteors appear to originate and radiate from the Taurus constellation, hence its name.
Monday's fireball is similar to two fireball meteors that blazed across Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania recently. On Oct. 5, a green streak of light burned over Lake Erie and broke up In Ohio, and then a week later, a second fireball broke up near Erie, PA and was seen from hundreds of miles away at twilight. A meteor is just simple a composition of a comet and an asteroid, which gets heated up by friction in the Earth's atmosphere.
The meteor shower has been active since October, but earlier this week, it hit its peak, NASA said. While optimal visibility was forecast after midnight, the early evening fireball was a surprising shock to skygazers. According to NASA, it takes about 3.5 years for the Northern Taurids to compelte a full trip around the Sun.
What really happened was the Earth passed through a broad stream of debris leftover by Comet Encke some 10,000 years ago, according to Bill Cooke of NASH's Meteroid Environments Office.
When the dust from Comet Encke hits the Earth's atmosphere at 65,000 mph, it burns up and creates the Taurid meteor shower, according to NASA.
ABC News reported that unlike most meteors, according to NASA, fireballs are larger, which gives them a brighter appearance, even outshining Venus.
According to the American Meteor Society, fireballs can leave behind trains or smoke trails. Smoke trails, which are most often visible during daylight hours, resemble the contrails left by airplanes and can appear light or dark.
The Northern Taurids are visible until Dec. 2. Other upcoming meteor showers include the Leonids this weekend, the Geminids on Dec. 12-13 and the Ursids from Dec. 21-22.
According to the Farmers’ Almanac, two more special full moons remain this year: A beaver supermoon on Nov. 15 and a cold moon on Dec. 15.
