Huge Geminid Meteor Shower Fireball Caught On Police Dashcam

This week brought a treat for astronomy enthusiasts: the Geminid meteor shower. The shooting stars were visible last night in areas where the sky was clear, and now content is starting to roll in. Among the images and videos is a clip featuring a big, green fireball caught streaking across the sky by a police cruiser's dashcam.

The fireball was spotted in Indiana, where Howard County Sheriff's Department Cpl. Chris Cramer was on patrol. While driving down the street late at night, the dashcam recorded a large green fireball appearing in the sky, growing larger before peaking and then fading out of view.

The dashcam footage was shared by the Sheriff's Department on Facebook last night, giving the public one of the clearest videos of a fireball in months. According to the post, the celestial event was captured on SR-22 near 600 E.

This is the latest a growing number of fireballs — many of which are a total surprise — captured by security and dash cameras. This past July, for example, a meteor was captured on multiple cameras across 10 midwestern states in the US, including a security camera located on a farm.

Before that in June, NASA revealed that a "tiny" 6ft asteroid called LA 2018 had passed into the atmosphere near Botswana, where it was captured on camera as a huge fireball passing over the horizon. The space agency estimates the tiny asteroid was traveling at around 38,000mph when it hit the planet's atmosphere.