If You Got Video of Falling Meteor, NASA Wants You

Remember those mysterious booms that were heard around Novato on a sporadic basis, prompting residents to call police?

Maybe it was falling meteors.

It's possible.

Get this: NASA and the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute are asking for the public's help finding footage photos and video of a daylight meteor that fell over Northern California on Sunday, the NASA Ames Research Center announced Wednesday.

The meteor was sighted over the Sierra Nevada range shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday, causing a sonic boom heard throughout the area, researchers said. Through more photos and videos of the meteor, NASA and SETI researchers hope to analyze the trajectory of the meteor as it fell, lending insight into its orbit in space and where fragments of it may have landed on Earth.

Astronomer Peter Jenniskens of NASA Ames and the SETI Institute found a four-gram fragment of the meteor in a parking lot in the of Lotus, a Gold Country hamlet on the American River.

"This appears to be a rare type of primitive meteorite rich in organic compounds," Jenniskens said.

Anyone who took photos or video of the meteor has been asked to contact Jenniskens at petrus.m.jenniskens@nasa.gov.

— Bay City News Service