Tonight Could Be The Night You See A Fireball
Be on the lookout for this giant, colorful, once-in-a-lifetime super meteor
Have you ever seen something you thought was impossible?
I’ve seen dozens of shooting stars, but until recently, I had never heard of a fireball. When I found out what it was, I couldn’t believe it. It looked like something that only happened in cartoons, or in fantasy worlds, or on other planets.
A fireball is a large shooting star (a meteor) formed when a piece of space rock enters our atmosphere and burns. It is often multicolored and glittering.
Other rare phenomena require special conditions. For example, seeing a total eclipse requires a precise time and location. Seeing a meteor shower (these occur at predictable times throughout the year) depends on a sky that gets dark enough for subtle falling stars to be visible. Fireballs happen unexpectedly, and can be seen anywhere in the world, even light-polluted cities.
The piece of rock that causes a fireball is typically the size of a pebble. It burns up at a distance of more than fifty miles from the ground. A single fireball can be seen from such a huge area that two people hundreds of miles apart can see the same one.
I learned about fireballs about a year ago, from a truly unbelievable viral video by Milena Refacho of Portugal. On May 18, 2024, she happened to be filming herself when a huge blue-green fireball streaked across the sky.
If something so incredible could happen, why didn’t I know what it was? Why doesn’t everyone?
I began reading about fireballs, and came across the American Meteor Society registry, where anyone can report a fireball sighting. For a shooting star to count as a fireball, it must be brighter than the planet Venus. “Seeing a fireball is extremely rare and often a once in a lifetime event,” the site says. That is to say, if you have to ask, it’s probably an ordinary meteor.
The night I saw my first fireball, it was late September of 2024, and 99 degrees at 10:40 pm. It was the final night of a visit to Phoenix, Arizona before heading home to California. Through the light pollution, smog, and dust, a sparkling mint-green-and-white fireball fell in a straight vertical line from the top of the sky toward the horizon.
A year earlier, before learning about fireballs, I might have suspected that what I saw was a stray firework. Instead, recalling the American Meteor Society’s registry, I went to the website, filed a report and waited. Would anyone else report it?
The next day, I checked back, and was excited to see that it was officially recorded as Fireball Event 5543-2024, with seven witness reports: four from Arizona and three from southern California.
Fireballs as bright as the one in Milena Refacho’s video (Fireball Event 2841-2024) are rarer. That event had 139 registered reports, mostly across Spain and Portugal.
How rare is it to see a fireball? A comment on a Reddit post “Just saw my first meteor fireball” reads:
“I'm 73 and have been an amateur astronomer since I was about 10. I've seen thousands of meteors, hundreds of long-duration and/or colorful meteors, but just a handful (5? 6?) of true meteoric fireballs.”
The experience of seeing a fireball is reflected in the “remarks” field of individual reports to the American Meteor Society. They are frequently seen while driving or walking dogs. Many are two, three, and even four or five colors.
Some penetrated through clouds. One witness initially called 911. From another: “I’m so pumped to have seen it while smoking a fat hooter with two friends who had their backs to it and did not see it!”
Seeing a fireball is rare, but fireballs themselves are not. The AMS site’s FAQ and. NASA astronomer Bill Cooke estimated the frequency of fireballs. From the description of Cooke’s model:
“According to [Cooke]’s calculations, fireballs as bright as Venus appear somewhere on Earth more than 100 times daily. Fireballs as bright as a quarter Moon occur once every ten days, and fireballs as bright as a full Moon once every five months.
The vast majority are never noticed. About 70% of all fireballs streak over uninhabited ocean. Half appear during the day, invisible in sunny skies. Many are missed, however, simply because no one bothers to look up.”
Only six other people reported the fireball that I witnessed. The viewing area encompassed several metropolitan regions. More people had to have seen it.
When I saw my first fireball, I was so glad to know what one was. Now you will, too. The anticipation of witnessing something absolutely amazing is part of the pleasure of experiencing it.
It is now on my mind that fireballs are happening somewhere on earth several times every hour. Even without actually seeing them, having them in our imaginations brings them into our lives. Our environments limit what our senses take in, but we are free to add whatever we want to our inner worlds.
What fun, to realize we could be surprised by such a cool “thing”.
Of course there are precious few pictures because who is ready when they spot this once in a lifetime unpredictable event? Even Emily!
Thanks for teaching us of something else to be aware of.