Fireball Identified as Possible Meteor

A bright blue fireball that lit up Southern California skies around 9:30 p.m. Sunday was probably a meteor, astronomers said Monday.

Some local residents who witnessed the burst of light called 911 to report what they thought was a downed plane or an errant missile, officials with the California Highway Patrol said.

Hal Jandorf, an astronomy instructor at Moorpark College, did not see the fireball, but said it probably was a bolide, a meteor composed of a larger and brighter piece of burning cosmic rock than is typically seen in the nighttime sky.

“If it’s bright enough, it could leave a tail that’s up for several minutes,” he said. “‘I saw one a year ago and almost had a heart attack.”

John Mosley, an astronomer at Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles, said that the annual Quadrantid meteor shower is scheduled to peak early this morning, but Sunday’s bolide probably was not part of that shower. He said the Quadrantid is not visible until midnight, and Sunday’s meteor was sighted too early in the evening.

“It was a totally random coincidence,” he said.

The Quadrantid shower will be visible in the northeastern sky between midnight and dawn through early Wednesday morning. The best viewing time is about 5 a.m., provided observers are in a dark area away from city lights, Mosley said.