American Meteor Society
Over 60 reports from California
The AMS received more than 60 reports so far about a fireball event that occurred over California on January 30th, 2020 around 06:30 UT (22:30 PST). The AMS #2020-531 event was mainly seen from the Los-Angeles / San Diego area.
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Based on the reports and videos we received about this event, we initially thought it was a space debris re-entry (slow event, heavy fragmentation, etc.)
After reading Dr Marco Langbroek‘s analysis and after receiving information from William J. Cooke, Lead, NASA Meteoroid Environments Office, the speed of the event is now evaluated of 15.5 km/s, which means the fireball was indeed produced by a meteoroid. We are no waiting for USAF confirmation.
Caught by AllSky6 Camera Operator
The event has been recorded by one of the AMS/AllSky6 Camera Operator: Bob Lunsford from El Cajon, CA.
We also received various photos and videos of the event, all available on the related .
this is soo cool…thank you
A group of my friends and I saw this from outside of our house. Santa Barbara, Ca. we have a few videos but very poor walkout but can still tell there was something moving across the sky.
We saw it at 10:22 pm in Riverdide Ca. Couldn’t get my camera out in time to video.
I was in Carlsbad , working on Palomar Airport Rd. I noticed it break apart 3 different times till it went out. The way it busted apart didn’t seem normal.
I get the chance to see it yesterday from Palm Springs / cathedral city California I was so lucky and happy to see it that brilliant and big fire rocks…!
which direction would you say it was heading towards??
Wish I could have seen it. Borderline artistic with its leisurely pace and many fragments.
I know it’s a huge stretch, but I can’t help but wonder if it was some sort of solar-orbiting spacecraft from decades ago that’s wandered back our way. The fragmentation looks so much like debris reentries.
Seen it fragment into many parts over wofford heights, Bakersfield Kern county and vanishing.
I seen this from Lancaster Ca, around 12:30 a.m last night I didn’t witness the fireball across the sky but i did notice that grouping of 3 to 4 lights (or stars maybe) and they were flashing but there was many of them scattered around the sky where i looked. Never seen anything like it.
I remember seeing that in January from Orange county California it was wild has anybody else load the video down and zoomed in and zoomed in again in slow motion quite interesting the possibilities are as infinite as our universe but the truth remains the truth and it is out there.