The Taurids annual meteor shower still seems to have a lot of wonderful celestial spectacles in store for us. All we need to do is to keep our eyes on the night sky every evening, as there is still plenty of time left until the meteor shower officially ends.
From time to time, the Taurids meteor shower has its moments of brightness, literally speaking! This is what may have happened two days ago when a sparkling fireball was seen zooming across the skies above the American state of Utah.
Blazing at 10:45 PM across the sky
A new video was caught of the fireball in question at 10:45 PM when it was still not late enough for people to not be tucked in their beds. You may say that nature does care enough about us sometimes!
The fireball was so bright that for a brief moment, it ignited the largest part of the sky captured in the same frame. Feel free to watch the footage for yourself:
Just less than a week ago, we shared the video of another imposing fireball, one that hurtled across the skies above a city in California. While we can be almost certain that the meteor was from the Taurid meteor shower, we’re still waiting to find out more about the one that was seen by the residents of Utah.
The Taurids meteor shower will continue to unfold on the night sky until December 10, when it officially ends, after it had its debut on October 20. The meteors are associated with comet Encke, and they actually represent two separate showers: a Northern and a Southern component.
What’s perhaps even more fascinating is that both Taurids and the Encke comet are believed to be remnants of an even larger comet. This latter cosmic object might have disintegrated over the last 20,000 to 30,000 years.