CAUGHT ON CAMERA: ‘Fireball’ meteor lights up Colorado sky

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - What a show over Colorado Sunday morning!

A meteor lit up the sky around 4:30 Sunday morning. People from the Denver metro all the way down to Trinidad reported seeing the ball of light.

“I stepped outside for just a second while my coffee was brewing and it all happened within one second,” said Brian Onley, who saw the meteor from his Trinidad home.

“My thought on this is pretty cool! I never seen it. It woke me up and it was instant flash,” Kellie Moothart of Falcon told 11 News.

According to Bruce Bookout, a professor at Pikes Peak Community College and member of the Colorado Springs Astronomical Society, this was a “fireball” meteor.

“That’s definitely a Bolide type. There are multiple different types of meteors that come through. The vast majority of what we see that comes through like this these are all pieces of comments that have broken up in the trail and things like that or they could be random pieces out of the asteroid belt,” says Bookout.

Bookout tells 11 News these types of meteors are very common and are easier to see with our dark Colorado skies.

“This has been occurring for thousands and thousands of years ... they’re normal small rocks that burn up. It’s no big deal, this happens all the time, and it’s very, very common. It’s nice to find a good, pretty bright fireball, but it’s one little moment event and it’s over, nothing lingers, nothing bad, and we don’t have to play the ancient games of superstition of, ‘The sky is falling’ and all that. It’s just a rock, and it just got hot and self-destructed.”

But very cool to witness nonetheless!

If you got a photo or video of the meteor, add it to the album below!

Copyright 2021 KKTV. All rights reserved.