Meteor shower of 2016 to light up sky at midnight

Several times a year, hundreds of celestial fireballs light up the night skies in what is known as a meteor shower. While one of the most well-known meteor showers – The Perseids – will be occurring in August, you do not have to wait that long to admire the phenomenon yourself.A meteor shower called the Delta Aquarids is happening right now, and will be most visible to the naked eye around July 28 and 29.  Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts tweeted that the fireball was debris from a Chinese rocket launched June 25. McDowell told the Los Angeles Times that the rocket reentered over Utah about 9:40 p.m. and was likely traveling about 18,000 mph. 

Observation reports from Utah indicate the second stage from the first Chang Zheng 7 rocket, launched Jun 25, reentered at 0440 UTC

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) July 28, 2016

KTLA was getting calls and messages on social media from all over Los Angeles and elsewhere of the bright lights zooming in the sky.
The spectacle came a day before a meteor shower was expected to be seen across North America.
The Delta Aquarids peaks this week with the brightest streaks of light crossing our skies Thursday and Friday.
This meteor shower is best seen north of the equator, and should be visible to those in North America. Peak times to watch are late in the evening and during predawn hours, weather and cloud coverage permitting.
Officials at the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City and Nevada were also responding to people on Twitter who had seen the majestic lights Wednesday night.
A spokesman for U.S. Strategic Command told the Times said the agency would not provide details of what might have actually happened until Thursday.
Meteor showers are usually named after the constellation that their radiant lies in.For example, the Delta Aquarids shower is named as such because its radiant appears to lie in the constellation Aquarius, near one of the constellation’s brightest stars, Delta Aquarii.
While astronomers know that the Delta Aquarids shower occurs every July, little is known about the comet that produces the meteors.