Blue flash meteor captured on camera streaking across Texas sky
AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas fully lived up to shining "big and bright" after it appears a meteor streaked across the sky Thursday night.
It happened in the Killeen area, and video from Christopher Cato shows the burst of blue light caught on his dash camera as it traveled through the atmosphere.
Others in Central Texas said they heard a loud boom.
One woman in Hempstead told sister station ABC13 meteorologist Travis Herzog she spotted the blue flash, which bloomed into a turquoise jewel tone as it raced across the night sky.
Viewer Mary Ann Miron reported that she saw something unusual explode in the sky around 9:30 p.m. west of Highway 6 on FM 1736.
"A giant ball like a meteorite changed the rainbow spectrum of colors until it turned into a beautiful turquoise," Miron said. "I've seen shooting stars, but this was huge and colorful."
NASA defines a meteor as a bit of rock that breaks off from an asteroid orbiting the sun. It burns when it enters Earth's atmosphere.
If part of the rock survives the trip through the atmosphere and hits the earth's surface, it becomes a meteorite.
The Leonid meteor shower happened this weekend, but Herzog said there's no way to know if this particular meteor was part of that.
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