A Bright ‘Fireball’ Lit Up the Sky This Week, But It Wasn’t a Meteorite — Here’s What Experts Say

Residents of Mexico City are pondering the out-of-nowhere blinding light in the sky.

Around 3 a.m. Wednesday, April 16, Mexico’s capital was illuminated by what appeared to be a fireball in the sky. Many residents were quick to assume it was a meteorite, but scientists in Mexico have offered a more specific explanation: the bright light in the sky was a bolide.

Bolides — also referred to by NASA as “fireball events” — are actually quite common, appearing “several dozen” times in a single year. The phenomenon occurs when asteroids penetrating Earth’s atmosphere are too small to hit the ground, but still large enough to enter the atmosphere.

Though bolides are considered meteors, they’re distinguished by the fact that they’re bright enough to even be seen in the daytime, according to NASA. Bolides are not considered meteorites, because a meteorite reaches the planet’s surface.

Mario Rodriguez, a doctor of space science with the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told the Associated Press that the sighting early on Wednesday was roughly five feet (1.5 meters) and wasn’t dangerous. The bright flash of the fireball is a result of the pressure the object incurs while entering Earth’s atmosphere, he added.

“Due to the great pressure on the object, they begin to flash with a stretching tail and emit light,” Rodriguez said, according to the AP and The Independent.

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Another fireball event occurred in North America in December 2020, when a bolide caused a bright light-midday flash and a “sonic boom.” The American Meteor Society explained the noise and flash of light in a subsequent report, noting that the object’s height determines if there’s a sound.

“When a very bright fireball penetrates to the stratosphere, below an altitude of about 30 miles, and explodes as a bolide, there is a chance that sonic booms may be heard on the ground below,” the AMS said in a statement.