'I was surprised': Blazing meteor caught on Sask. home security camera

It's regular early morning practice for Paul Senger to check his home security camera footage. But on Wednesday something caught his eyes - a bright ball of light streaking across the sky over Lloydminster.

“It was early in the morning and it was still very dark, the meteor lit up the sky,” Senger told CTV News.

“It came so low in altitude streaking east to west across the south side of the city.”

The morning bright ball of light was unlike anything Senger had ever witnessed before. “I was surprised,” he said.

“It took a minute to figure out what it actually was.”

But what exactly was it that caught his eyes?

PhD graduate in geophysics at the University of Saskatchewan Dr. Gunjan Sinha, said he had seen the video of the meteor landing over Lloydminster.

He said Quadrantids meteor shower peaks on Jan. 3 every year but a bright meteor like the one Senger has captured, is not very common.

“This might be a late Quadrantid meteor,” Sinha told CTV News.

“If it is indeed a Quadrantid, the origin will be from an asteroid (2003 EH1). Otherwise, regular meteor source would be mainly the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter.”

The asteroid, 2003 EH1, periodically orbits past earth and is believed to be the "parent" responsible for the Quadrantid meteor shower, shedding small pieces of rock during its annual journey.

According to experts, the asteroid is roughly the size of Mount Everest. 

Senger said he did not see where the meteor exactly landed or if it damaged anything in the vicinity of his home after it was seen.

“Based on the brightness and lack of explosions in the video, it is very unlikely anything made it to the ground,” Sinha said.

Sinha said from the video it looked like a meteor, however not large enough to make it to the ground.

The term "meteor" only describes the streak of light in the sky which results when a meteoroid passes through Earth's atmosphere.

Meteors are described by their size, brightness, and proximity to Earth.

Sinha said the meteor that blazed past Senger's camera seemed to be traveling at an "average" meteor speed.

Meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere at speeds typically of 12-40 km/s relative to the Earth.

Senger isn't too worried about the speed and the brightness of the meteor, and said he was just happy to capture a "celestial event" that made a routine morning memorable.

“Makes you really stop and think about how many things are going on in the solar system that we never think about on a day to day basis.” Senger said.