Houston, Texas, USA
2 min read
Video Credit: Hunter Moliver
Houston Meteor Ended Over the Gulf of Mexico
December 5, 2019 5:35 AM CST – A very fast meteor appeared over Houston, Texas, on Thursday morning. It appeared as a brilliant fireball, with an additional streak of material emerging quickly after the flash, leading some to speculate that a large meteorite might have deposited on the ground. Unfortunately, the video data indicates that the end was likely more than 50km off the coast, in the Gulf of Mexico. The speed of the meteor was measured at roughly 40 km/s, so it is unlikely any surviving material was large enough to make a splash in the water below.
| Event Record(s): | AMS Event 6169-2019 |
| Date/Time: | 2019-12-05 11:35:58 UTC |
| Location: | 200km SSW of Houston, Texas |
| Dark Flight Coordinates: | 27.984 °N 95.908°W Google Map |
| Dark Flight Altitude: | ~40 km above sea level |
| Energy / Mass Estimate: | – |
| Entry Speed: | ~40 km/s |
Bearing The direction of travel of the meteoroid, relative to the ground, in clockwise degrees from North. The terms "heading" and "bearing" may be used interchangeably for projectile motion.: | ~220° SW |
| Slope: | ~67° from vertical |
Event Videos
The videos shown here were used to calculate the trajectory of the meteor, in the file attached below.
Event Data
Jim Goodall triangulated the approximate start and end points of the meteor, from the videos shown above. You may download the attached KMLKML or KMZ files are often used to share geographic data and they are most often used in Google Earth software. KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language, which is an... file for details.
My name is Jim Goodall, and I am an automotive controls engineer in Michigan, but my passion is physics. I started this website as a hobby, to support the global network of meteorite hunters.
Feel free to contact me, if you have any questions about the products on this website. Jim Goodall | Hartland, Michigan, USA | james.a.goodall@gmail.com | +1 586 709 5888