BAY AREA FIREBALL: Last night, Oct. 17th, many people near San Francisco saw a slow-moving fireball exploding in the sky around 07:45 pm PDT. Witnesses report bright flashes of light and sonic booms that shook houses. Using a wide-field camera, Wes Jones caught the meteor disappearing behind the trees in the city of Belmont:

“We don’t know yet if the end point [of the meteor’s flight] was over land or water,” says meteor expert Peter Jenniskens of the NASA Ames Research Center. Jenniskens operates a network of Cameras for All-sky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) near the Bay Area. “Data from the CAMS system should give us an answer [about landfall]. We’re analyzing the data now.” Stay tuned.

Note: Although Earth is nearing a stream of debris from Halley’s Comet, source of the Orionid meteor shower, this fireball was probably not an Orionid. The timing and direction of the meteor do not seem to match the Orionids.

fr/Spaceweather.com