A meteor was seen in the skies above Nuevo León Tuesday night and there are reports that it crashed to Earth in Tamaulipas around 11 p.m.
Numerous social media users shared photos and videos of the glowing celestial object which was also caught by a webcam mounted on a building in Monterrey. Meteors were also seen in Coahuila and Texas.
The Civil Protection agency was called to the presumed crash site, where the meteorite appears to have set fire to bushes and trees near a home in Lázaro Cárdenas, scorching an area measuring four meters in diameter.
Authorities responded to a 911 call to put out the fire, and Civil Protection recovered several unusual rocks the size and shape of large gumballs from the burnt area, which they collected for further study.
Meteorites were also reported to have struck the Earth in Tula and San Carlos, Tamaulipas, although authorities have presented no evidence that the fireballs witnessed actually struck the Earth and no fires have been reported.
Ahí les va video del meteorito donde si se aprecia, grabado por una de las cámaras de @FER_GV #Meteorito #mty @Cicmty @aztecacomunidad @_LASNOTICIASMTY @MauroMoralesMtz @abimaelsalas pic.twitter.com/2sJUTe21Pw
— Isacar Leal (@isagol_) October 7, 2020
Speculation on social media suggested the bright flash in the sky was part of the yearly Draconid meteor shower which is taking place now through October 11 with peak activity coming Wednesday evening. Others blamed aliens or businessman Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX.
In February, people in the state of México, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Michoacán and Mexico City reported seeing a large, glowing object traversing the night sky. Civil Protection posted on Twitter that it was a “meteorite that was surely destroyed in the air and is unlikely to have impacted Mexican territory.”
According to NASA, hundreds of particles and celestial objects cross the Earth’s atmosphere every day, and upon impacting with the atmosphere, ignite and create the flashes that are popularly called shooting stars.
Cosmos Magazine estimates that approximately 17 meteorites hit Earth each day.
Source: El Heraldo de México (sp), RT (en)
