Two big fireballs over California in two days
The AMS received over 110 reports so far about a fireball event that occurred over California (LA area) on June 10th, 2020 around 3:33 Universal Time (June 9th, 2020 08:33pm PDT). We also received nearly 90 reports about a similar event that occurred the next day North of San Francisco, CA. This second event occurred on June 11th 2020 around 03:51 Universal Time (June 10th, 2020 08:51pm PDT)
If you witnessed this event and/or if you have a video or a photo of this event, please
Submit an Official Fireball Report
If you want to learn more about Fireballs: read our Fireball FAQ.
Estimated 3D Trajectories
The preliminary trajectories computed based on all the reports submitted to the AMS so far shows that the tow fireballs were mainly travelling from
East to West. The first one (AMS#2779-2020
Fireball, Meteorite…?
Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.
Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event. As a general thumb rule, there are only about 1/3 as many fireballs present for each successively brighter magnitude class, following an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about 1 fireball of magnitude -6 or better for every 200 hours of meteor observing, while a fireball of magnitude -4 can be expected about once every 20 hours or so.
