NASA got a good look at that fireball asteroid over Arizona
A blaze of light flares up in the night sky in Arizona and NASA's meteor cam catches sight of the source.
Eyewitnesses in Arizona got a surprise early Thursday morning when the sky went from dark to blazingly bright and then back to black. This wasn't a UFO and it wasn't a wayward fireworks display. According to NASA, an asteroid 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter entered the atmosphere and turned night into day for a brief flashing moment.
"There are no reports of any damage or injuries -- just a lot of light and few sonic booms," Bill Cooke, of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, said in a statement. He expects there to be meteorites scattered on the ground north of Tucson, in case anybody would like to forge a replica of King Tut's dagger.
NASA released a short video from a meteor camera in Arizona. It shows the asteroid approaching from the top of the screen like a growing pinpoint of light. It then completely saturates the frame like some cosmic flashlight turned up to full brightness. Footage from another camera trained on Sedona showed the impressive strength of the light show as the city's red rock cliffs glow under the fireball's illumination. Asteroids reach Earth's atmosphere every day, but this particular asteroid has the advantage of being both incredibly bright and well-documented on video.
