Meteor fireball lights up sky in Southern Nevada

A chunk from a meteor streaking through space lit up Southern Nevada skies early Tuesday, creating a fireball that disappeared over Southern California.

Such space stuff hits Earth's atmosphere every day, said Dale Etheridge, director of the planetarium at the Community College of Southern Nevada, Cheyenne Campus.

Most of it burns up in the air, missing people and buildings in its path.

Southern Nevada's fireball dropped south and west across the sky about 6:45 a.m., Etheridge said. It was also seen streaking across Southern California.

"From what observers said, it was about the size of a softball or a soccer ball," Etheridge said.

Fireballs are rare. They do not accompany meteor showers such as November's Leonids or August's Persiods, he said.

"But they are visible about once every 10 years," Etheridge said, because most of the fiery fragments drop into the planet's oceans, not where people can see them.

From its course along the southwest horizon, the fireball struck the atmosphere at a fairly low angle.

"If anything survived, it probably went into the Pacific Ocean," he said.

For more information about fireballs and meteors, check the International Meteor Organization's website at imo.net/fireball/fidac04.html.

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