A new video captured how a meteor's bright fireball event turned night into day as it streaked across the sky. According to eyewitness reports, the latest fireball incident occurred over the US Virgin Islands.
The latest fireball event was reported by the American Meteor Society (AMS). According to the organization, a total of seven eyewitness reports were filed through its website regarding the incident.
Latest Fireball Incident
Many of the eyewitness reports were submitted by residents of the islands, Saint John, Saint Thomas Pointe-à-Pitre Grande-Terreand. The reports indicated that the fireball event occurred on April 27 at 12:40 am UTC or April 26 at 8:40 pm EDT. As noted by the eyewitnesses, the meteor that appeared over the islands was very bright. Many of them stated that its magnitude ranged from -4 to -27, indicating that it was brighter than Venus, which is the third brightest object in the sky.
The reports mentioned that the meteor's fireball was visible for about 1.5 to 3.5 seconds. It also displayed different colours as it streaked across the sky. According to eyewitnesses, the object displayed yellowish and greenish glows.
Turning Night Into Day
Although the exact image of the falling meteor was not caught by cameras, an eyewitness from Saint John shared a short video that shows the brightness of the fireball. In the nine-second video uploaded by eyewitness Erich Wellemeyer, it can be seen how the meteor's brightness illuminated the dark sky.
For a split-second, night turned into day as the meteor flew over the region. It was so bright that it turned parts of the sky blue and even revealed some of the clouds in the sky.
Meteor's Fragmentation
One of the eyewitnesses noted that the fireball appeared to have broken apart as it left a trail in the sky. Unfortunately, the fragments from the meteor were not bright enough to be clearly spotted from the ground. As noted by the AMS, fireball events often end up fragmenting after going through the atmosphere.
"A fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus as seen in the morning or evening sky," the organization explained. "A bolide is a special type of fireball which explodes in a bright terminal flash at its end, often with visible fragmentation."
