Tens of eyewitnesses in California are reporting a bright fireball seen east of the Bay Area at 12:34 AM Pacific Daylight Time on July 31, 2021 (2021 July 31 7:34 UTC). We have used the information in the reports posted on the American Meteor Society website along with a video posted to Twitter (https://twitter.com/kfury/status/1421343444065083392) to estimate the meteor's trajectory. The fireball was first spotted 52 miles above Garden Valley Road near Foster Mountain, moving to the southeast at a leisurely 46,000 miles per hour. It travelled 61 miles through the upper atmosphere before ablating 33 miles above Beardsley Lake in the Stansilaus National Forest. We do not have orbit/brightness information, so an origin and size estimate of the object are not available at this time.
Event ID | 20210731-073400 |
Date (UTC) | July 31, 2021 |
Time (UTC) | 07:34:00 |
AMS Event | 4150-2021 |
Chicken Little Start Lat/Lon | +38.852, -120.853 |
Chicken Little End Lat/Lon | +38.275, -120.079 |
Chicken Little Altitude | 83.3 km → 52.5 km ( 51.7 miles→ 32.6 miles) |
Chicken Little Speed | 20.6 km/s (46,100 mph) |