Astrophotographer José Luis Pereira of São Paulo was taking video and photos of his favorite planet, Jupiter, when on Monday night he captured on video a bright white flash: An object — likely a giant rock — crashing into the colorful gas giant's atmosphere.

The weather was cloudy, so he didn’t expect to get much on film that night, Pereira said in a statement sent to the Redding Record Searchlight.

For many August and September nights it was the only night sky object visible besides the moon through wildfire smoke and haze hovering over Northern California.

Even at an average distance of 484 million miles from the sun — 378 million miles from Earth, massive Jupiter can be seen with the naked eye on clear nights this week.