Area residents who were lucky enough to be looking at the sky late Friday night are still in awe over a greenish-red fireball they saw zoom past. The object, likely a meteorite associated with the Lyrid meteor shower, was witnessed up and down the Front Range, according to officials. They said it apparently landed somewhere near the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs.
A fireball that dozens of Front Range residents spotted was part of a meteor shower, according to Capt. Tim Lundberg of North American Aerospace Defence Command. The meteor appeared around 11:08 p.m. Friday. Lundberg told KUSA-TV in Denver that it was centred over the Air Force Academy, near Colorado Springs.
A fireball that streaked across the Denver sky at 11 p.m. Friday prompted dozens of people to call the Cloudbait Observatory in Guffey to report the bright meteor.
"It was not uncommon and moved fairly slow" - Chris Peterson, a research associate at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Peterson is part of a team that uses special cameras to track the paths of meteor showers. Although tonight marks the peak of the April 20-22 annual Lyrid meteor shower, Peterson does not believe the fireball was part of the meteor shower because it travelled in the opposite direction. People reported the fireball as being green and orange and most of the eyewitnesses were from the Denver area