Īnalysis of its appearance and trajectory showed the object was about 3–14 m (10–45 ft) in diameter, depending on whether it was a comet made of ice or a stony and therefore denser asteroid. A meteor entered the earth's atmosphere over northern Utah on August 13, 2022.

If true, the next encounter would be on or near August 10, 2022, albeit with 'vanishingly small, but not zero' probability. The prediction of a close passage in 1997 was based on the suggestion by Zdeněk Ceplecha of a post-1972 orbital resonance of about 25 years. However IAU's website states that these 'suggestions have not been substantiated'. The atmospheric pass modified the object's mass and orbit around the Sun, but it is probably still in an Earth-crossing orbit and is thought to have passed close to Earth again in August 1997. The smoke trail lingered in the atmosphere for several minutes. An eyewitness to the event, located in Missoula, Montana, saw the object pass directly overhead and heard a double sonic boom. It was seen by many people and recorded on film and by space-borne sensors. It entered Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 15 kilometres per second (9.3 mi/s) in daylight over Utah, United States (14:30 local time) and passed northwards leaving the atmosphere over Alberta, Canada. The Great Daylight Fireball (a.k.a US19720810 and the Grand Teton Meteor ) was an Earth-grazing fireball that passed within 57 kilometres (35 mi 187,000 ft) of Earth's surface at 20:29 UTC on August 10, 1972.

(Credit & Copyright: Antarctic search for meteorites program, Case Western Reserve University, James M.

Great fire ball