A series of meteors flashed across the night sky of North America on 17 July. One particularly bright shooting star raced above North Carolina.
Dan Perjar, a Raleigh-based software developer, was driving east on I-440 that night. On his dashboard was a dashcam, recording his journey. The camera recorded the bright meteor as it streaked across the sky.
The American Meteor Society (AMS) announced they have received 95 reports on similar events from skywatchers in North Carolina, as well as Pennsylvania, Delaware Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and the nation's capital.
One witness to the event in North Carolina, Jason B. of Selma, told the AMS that the fireball "was bright enough to ruin our night vision for a moment." He was out with a pair of friends, searching the night sky for satellites and shooting stars, when they saw the massive fireball.
"We heard a rumble many seconds later but not sure if that was from a plane or the meteor. It made it very low on the horizon (also its brightest point) before being obscured by the distant tree line," Jason B. wrote to the AMS.
According to the majority of eyewitnesses, the meteor started white, turned a shade of reddish-orange, and finally glowed with green light as it completed its flight.
Calls reporting shooting stars came into the AMS office between 9:15 and 10:45 p.m. The large shooting star appeared over North Carolina about 10:17.
Every year, people on Earth are treated to eight annual meteor showers, but the spate of shooting stars on 17 July does not match any of those events. The next major annual event will be the Perseids, which will peak on the nights of 11 and 12 August.
These annual events are caused when the Earth, orbiting around the sun, collides with debris left behind by comets.
Most of the pieces of rock and ice that produce shooting stars are only about as large as apple seeds. They glow from heating caused by air friction as they race through the atmosphere. Interestingly, meteors burn up at different heights, depending on their initial velocity, relative to the Earth. Meteors begin to heat almost immediately upon entering the atmosphere, and the Perseids, traveling over 38 miles per second, become visible 60 miles above the ground. The Draconids, with a velocity of 14 miles per second, make it to 40 miles above the surface of the Earth before being consumed.
The video of the North Carolina meteor, captured by Perjar's dashcam, is available on YouTube.
