Missouri Traffic Camera Accidentally Captures a Meteor Explosion

When this Missouri traffic camera was originally put in place, it had one job - to monitor traffic over a highway. It accidentally just did another job and that's capturing video of a meteor exploding in the sky over the roadway.

According to the American Meteor Society, this bright fireball lit up the skies over 4 states including the Kansas City, Missouri area on the night of Friday, August 2, 2024 around 9:28pm. As luck would have it, there's a Missouri traffic cam that sits over northbound I-435 near Kansas City that was pointed the right direction when this meteor exploded overhead.

There were only 7 official reports to the American Meteor Society website of this bright but brief fireball as of this writing. Still, it's an interesting sky moment over Missouri that was captured just because someone told a camera to watch traffic years ago. A truly serendipitous meteor moment.