PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – Blink and you might miss it.
.jpg)
While delivering food for Doordash, driver Steve Salmasian was in Port St. Lucie, Florida, at about 8:30 p.m. on April 7 when his dashcam caught a bright blue-green meteor illuminating the evening sky.
Meteors – also called fireballs, falling stars or shooting stars – are common occurrences in the Earth's atmosphere. Every day, there are several thousand meteors of "fireball" magnitude, which is about as bright as the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
However, seeing them is uncommon because:
- They often occur over the ocean or uninhabited regions
- They can be masked by sunlight during the day
- Fewer people are outside to see them during the night.
"It was just perfect. It was like the Cinderella story of viewing," Salmasian said.
.jpg)
What is a fireball?
Salmasian's dashcam video shows the blue streak he saw pass through the sky around the seven-second mark.
His first instinct was to see where he could report it, and he found the American Meteor Society.
The New York-based nonprofit for amateur and professional astronomers urges people who see fireballs to report them to its record log, as long as you adhere to these requirements:
- The sighting doesn't last for more than 30 seconds; fireballs are visible for only a short amount of time
- Do not report recurring events because fireball sightings are rare
- Do not report slow-blinking objects or lights because a fireball looks like a shooting star
- Do not report comet-like rocket launches that appear for several minutes.
NASA also has a fireball database. The All-Sky Fireball Network is a system of 17 cameras that NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office set up to create models of the "meteoroid environment," which is important to spacecraft designers. Here are which states have the cameras:
- Florida
- Georgia
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- North Carolina
- Arizona
- New Mexico
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania
NASA also has a fireball database. The All-Sky Fireball Network is a system of 17 cameras that NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office set up to create models of the "meteoroid environment," which is important to spacecraft designers. Here are which states have the cameras:
- Florida
- Georgia
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- North Carolina
- Arizona
- New Mexico
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania