SALT LAKE CITY — While most people were sleeping early Saturday morning, a bright ball of light blasted across Parley's Canyon and Grandeur Peak.
Video captured at 2:24 a.m. from a backyard camera pointing at the mountains shows the meteor come down to earth before burning up in a brilliant display of light.
Chris Hopper shared the incredible footage with FOX 13.
NASA Ambassador to Utah Patrick Wiggins says a few key details confirm the bright light to originate from a meteor falling event.
"A meteor, which can be moving 70-80 kilometers per second, those go really fast," he said. "Also, the green color parts of a meteor can be made up of material that glows green when it's coming through the atmosphere. I've never seen that in a human-made object."
Wiggins said he was outside meteor-watching at the time this happened, and although he was looking at the wrong part of the sky, he wasn't able to hear any sounds that would indicate if the falling meteor was nearby or not.
"Now, if they hear it, if they hear the Sonic boom, then we know it's close in," he said. "I was in the observatory out by Stansbury Park and nothing, so I didn't hear a thing."
FOX 13 hasn't received reports of anyone who observed the meteor falling having heard any sonic booms associated with a nearby falling event.
In the case of larger meteorite falling events, Wiggins points out that it can be observed from many states away if you are looking at the right place at the right time.
"There was one incident that I remember where people swore in the Salt Lake Valley, swore that this meteor had crashed into the Oquirrh Mountains," he said. "I called a friend of mine who worked at an observatory in California, obviously way to the west and they said, oh yeah, we got calls about that too. People saying it crashed into the Pacific Ocean."
According to Wiggins, the earth picks up on average 100 tons of meteoric material a day. While most of it is smaller particles across uninhabited areas such as oceans, they sometimes happen to fall over populated areas.
"You wait until after midnight and now you are facing the oncoming swarm and you've got a better chance of seeing them," he said. "Real observers will go out after midnight, typically two or three in the morning and they'll lay there and they see a bunch."
In this instance, it was at 2:24 a.m. Being in a remote area away from light pollution can also increase your chances of seeing a meteor shower.
Did you get to make a wish this morning? Please share what you saw to our email at news@fox13now.com
