Over Tucson, Arizona, residents watched as a huge mass of rock flew through the sky, then exploded and shook their houses like an earthquake. Tod Lauer, an astronomer, wrote on Facebook: “We were eating dinner and heard a good bang that rattled the roof of our house. I dismissed it as a sonic boom.”
Following the explosion was a burst of bright, white light and a blaze that eventually fizzled out. It was a remarkable precursor to the annual Geminid meteor shower that will begin on Thursday, which features around 100 to 120 meteors per hour.
“Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids are by far the most massive,” said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke. “When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500.”
