Meteor wows Horse Mt. Ranch family

EAGLE COUNTY - Steve Erickson and his boys have a pretty good view of the night sky. Tuesday, the daytime sky was pretty impressive, too.

As Erickson and his boys Colton, 11, and Cal, 9, were driving back to their home at Horse Mountain Ranch north of Wolcott Tuesday afternoon, they saw something - presumably a meteor - streak across the western sky.

"It was visible across probably a third of the sky, probably from Burns Hole to Muddy Pass," Steve said. "It looked like fireworks. When it separated, it had color to it."

The trail of smoke the meteor left then hung in the sky for several seconds after the thing had disintegrated.

"It was the biggest one I've ever seen," Colton said.

"It was better than seeing one at night," Cal said. "This didn't just streak across the sky and disappear."



Skygazing

Living at Horse Mountain Ranch - which is a few miles north and above Interstate 70 - gives the Erickson boys plenty of chances to look at the night sky. And both are interested in meteors, comets and the like.

Since he saw the meteor the other day, Colton has been researching daytime meteors. The biggest one he's read about was probably a piece of a comet that streaked into the atmosphere, then bounced back into space, above Wyoming in the 1970s.

"That one was probably the size of a football field," Colton said. "This one was a lot smaller."

But a meteor has to be good sized - perhaps the size of a golf ball - to be seen in the day.

"To see one in the daytime is probably pretty rare," said Jeff Bennett, a Boulder-based astronomer and author of the kid-oriented science books, "Max Goes to the Moon" and "Max Goes to Mars."

"About 25 million meteors enter the atmosphere every day," Bennett said. "Most are tiny streaks, but some are big enough to explode."

The sheer number of meteors entering the earth's atmosphere makes it hard to track all but the biggest of them. The meteor the Ericksons saw didn't register on any agency's radar screen.

Since most meteors create tiny streaks that are only visible at night, seeing a meteor big enough to be seen in daylight mostly requires people to be looking in the right place at the right time. The Ericksons are luckier than most.

The Vail dispatch center didn't receive any calls about the meteor, so it's anyone's guess if anyone else saw the thing.

"I know it's the first time I've ever seen one in the daytime," Steve said. But Tuesday's sighting wasn't the first time one of the Ericksons has been amazed by the sky.

In the 1990s, Steve's wife Charlie saw a meteor streak across the night sky and break up over the Gore Range.

"That one was seen in four or five states," she said.

"From our house we see the Northern Lights quite a bit," Steve said. "But this was really something."



Six fun facts

-Meteors are also called "shooting stars"

-Size: Between a grain of sand and a softball

-As many as 100 meteors per hour can be seen during any of the five regular meteor showers every year

-Meteor showers are caused by the earth passing through the path of a comet or asteroid

-Most meteors burn up before hitting the ground. Those that do hit the ground are called meteorites.

-The best way to watch a meteor shower is in a recliner or on the ground to avoid neck strain.



Staff Writer Scott N. Miller can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 14624, or smiller@vaildaily.com.



Vail Daily, Vail Colorado