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Wednesday morning meteor lights up skies over Western Montana

Lots of people across Western Montana saw a bright light streaking across the sky on Wednesday morning
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MISSOULA — Did you see it?

Lots of people across Western Montana saw a bright light streaking across the sky on Wednesday morning.

The National Weather Service office in Missoula reports a sensor detected what appears to be a meteor at around 6:30 a.m.

The meteor was first detected over southwest Alberta.

The American Meteor Society shows reports have come in from Montana, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Nevada, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, Utah and Wyoming.

Meteor streaks across Western Montana skies

According to the AMS, a fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky.

A bolide is a special type of fireball that explodes in a bright terminal flash at its end, often with visible fragmentation.

Meteor streaks across Western Montana skies

According to the AMS, a fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude as the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky.

Meteor streaks across Western Montana skies

AMS says that 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."

Meteor streaks across Western Montana skies

- information from Mark Thorsell included in this report.