Doorbell camera captures rather more than simply a house visitor

December 23, 2022

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While most Alaskans were tucked up in bed early on Wednesday morning, plenty of home security cameras in and around Anchorage captured a natural phenomenon that might otherwise have gone largely unnoticed.

At around 5:45 a.m. local time, a meteor hurtled across the sky, its speed because it hit Earth’s atmosphere causing a shiny light that momentarily lit up a big portion of Southcentral Alaska.

In footage captured by a resident’s doorcam and shared by Reuters, we will clearly see the meteor blaze across the sky above Anchorage.

But not everyone was sleeping, with some folks witnessing the event from their vehicle before reporting it on the American Meteor Society’s website.

“Saw this from the automobile driving north on Boniface Parkway in Anchorage,” wrote one witness. “I actually have seen meteor showers up to now, and this was unlike anything I’d ever seen … the streak was much, much wider, not just like the thin lines of shooting stars or meteor showers. I had two people within the automobile with me who also saw it, considered one of whom has a private interest in astronomy, and she or he agreed she had never seen anything prefer it.”

One other wrote: “I used to be driving my automobile when the brilliant light got here behind me and lit up the sky after which it got here excessive of my automobile after which in front of my vision after which disappeared suddenly. Shiny white on the front with a shiny blue tail.”

Mark Conde, a physics professor on the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told an area news site that the event was probably an element of the Ursid meteor shower, originating from comet 8P/Tuttle.

In actual fact, Thursday night is a terrific night to stay your head out of the window, or make you technique to a location free from light pollution, to see when you can spot any shooting stars from the Ursids, as this yr’s shower is about to peak. EarthSky suggests you might be lucky enough to see as much as 10 meteors per hour, but they’re unlikely to be as big because the one spotted over Alaska on Wednesday.