Northeastern Mexico residents were shocked when a green-colored fireball blazed across the night sky Tuesday, Oct. 6. Authorities have since confirmed that the meteor debris has triggered localized bushfires in the area.
Since the alleged meteorite streaked through the sky on Tuesday night at around 22:14 local time, reports of the incident poured in from around the northern state of Nuevo Leon. Eyewitnesses and doorbell cam footage filmed the fiery incident's brightness as it burned bright in the darkness.
Local media reported that in a small town in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas, the meteorite, or lump of space rock left after the meteor's crash, landed. The video below is from a daily paper named El Norte, published in Monterrey.
A flurry of rumors online was sparked due to the impressive light show. Some reported that it was only part of the meteor shower of the Draconids that took place between Oct. 6 and 11, with an average occurrence of 20 meteorites per hour. Naturally, others had more wild ideas, claiming perhaps that Elon Musk or aliens were responsible for the phenomena.
If you see Earth as a whole, bright fireballs like this one are normal. They occur regularly. However, it can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to catch sight of a bright fireball like this from just one place on Earth's surface. Every year, some of the larger rocks from space fall into the ocean, while smaller ones appear to burn up entirely in the atmosphere of the Earth.
Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere is also a good time to look out for meteor showers. At least two meteor showers are currently underway: the Draconids and the Taurids. Meteors that appear in annual showers, though, are completely different creatures from meteors that start off as space rocks and crash to the earth occasionally.
Meteor showers are the product of ice debris left behind in cometary orbits. These debris particles are about the size of rice grains, and they are so small that they vaporize fully into our atmosphere, without touching the earth. Thus, there is no link between the meteor seen over Monterrey and the meteor showers this week.
Civil defense units were reportedly dispatched to extinguish forest fires that broke out shortly after the fireball flew overhead, raising fears that the mysterious entity might have disintegrated, posing a greater risk than previously assumed to the surrounding region.
