(John Omohundro) Noctilucent Clouds over Colorado

Early on Wednesday, November 18th,  an asteroid hit the atmosphere and exploded over Colorado and Utah in a flash of light that surprised onlookers in at least eight states.

The debris from the asteroid formed into a unusual electric twisting blue cloud over the skies by daybreak,  similar to a cloud that formed over Sudan after an asteroid called 2008 TC3 hit the atmosphere and exploded on October 7, 2008.

Both clouds resembled what we call  noctilucent clouds which form naturally around the Earth's poles during summer or in the aftermath of rocket launches. 

[Note: Asteroid dust has been suspected as a source for the formation of noctilucent clouds by acting as nucleation points for high-altitude ice crystals]

Asteroid 2008 TC3 Noctilucent Clouds over Sudan- (Mohamed Elhassan Abdelatif Mahir (Noub NGO), Dr. Muawia H. Shaddad (Univ. Khartoum), Dr. Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute/NASA Ames))

Should we be concerned about this significant asteroid strike in the Earth's atmosphere?  

Well anything that strikes the atmosphere and explodes is a call for some concern but what makes this strike more significant is that this is latest asteroid explosion in the Earth's atmosphere in just over a month!

On October 8th, an asteroid more than 30 feet in diameter exploded above South Sulawesi, Indonesia., which according to experts at the NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office, may have been the largest in more than a decade with the energy of three Hiroshima bombs!

This asteroid is estimated to have hit the atmosphere at 45,000 mph exploding with a force of 50,000 tons of TNT.  

[Remains of an asteroid explosion over Indonesia as seen by an amateur videographer (NASA/Metro TV)]

The asteroid over Indonesia was never spotted by the Near Earth Object Program as it headed for our planet. 

In 2007, NASA officials said the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task.

The cost to find at least 90 percent of the 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets by 2020 would be about $1 billion.

Scientists are now tracking more than a thousand potentially threatening near-Earth asteroids. One of them passed the Earth on Oct. 17, skidding by inside the moon's orbit - less than 240,000 miles from the planet with an estimated size of 35 kilometers or 21.75 miles in diameter.

[Asteroid lights up the sky early on Wednesday November 18th in Utah]