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PORTLAND, Ore. — <\/span>Jason Jenkins was driving to work before dawn when a bright green streak beamed across the sky.<\/p>\n The camera on his dashboard captured the moment at 6:06 a.m. Monday while he was in southwestern Washington state about 20 miles (32 km) north of Portland, Oregon. Initially he thought it might be a comet, but then figured it was too close to be one.<\/p>\n \u201cIt kind of reminded me of a lightning strike because it was so bright,\u201d he said. \u201cThe video doesn\u2019t do justice on how bright and close it seemed.\u201d<\/p>\n What Jenkins saw was a fireball, a particularly bright meteor that can be seen up to 80 miles (129 kilometers) above the Earth, according to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland.<\/p>\n Last week a 7-ton meteor sped across the Ohio sky<\/a> in a fireball that could be seen from several states away. It broke apart in a thunderous boom that startled residents who feared an explosion.<\/p>\n On Saturday, a meteor traveling 35,000 miles (56,327 km) per hour broke apart north of Houston, according to NASA. The disintegration caused booms heard by some in the area, the agency said, and a resident told local TV news outlet ABC13<\/a> that a piece of the meteor crashed through her roof.<\/p>\n Green fireballs like the one Jenkins saw are often due to the presence of magnesium, which emits a bright blue-green light when heated and vaporized in the Earth’s atmosphere, the museum said. Nickel can also contribute to a green color.<\/p>\n Its altitude in the dark early morning sky made it widely visible, said Jim Todd, the museum\u2019s director of space science education.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was bright, it was green, it was spectacular,\u201d he said Monday. \u201cOne tiny little piece of rock put on such a show this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n With the video and other people reporting sightings, it may be possible to determine the direction the fireball was traveling and whether it landed on the Earth’s surface. In most cases, it’s rare that a fireball makes contact with the Earth, and when it does, it can be hard to locate, Todd said.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if it does survive, it looks like a common everyday rock, and nearly almost impossible to find, unless it hit a house or a street or leaves debris behind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As the number of people with cameras on their dashboards and doorbells has grown, so have reports of such sightings, he added.<\/p>\n Jenkins said that while he got his dashcam in case of an accident, it was \u201ccool to catch something like that.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI won’t go without a dashcam ever again,\u201d he said. \u201cI need to go buy a lottery ticket now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n