Fireball sightings in GA Thursday spark questions. What is NASA, meteorologists calling it?
A fiery streak across Georgia's sky left thousands across metro Atlanta and beyond stunned on Thursday.
According to 11Alive news in Atlanta, "Rockdale County relayed reports of people hearing a 'loud sound like a boom' and houses shaking."
According to the National Weather Service's office in Charleston, the streak was detected between 12:51 p.m. to 12:56 p.m.
The NWS also received reports about a "satellite-based lightning detection shows a streak within cloud free sky over the NC/VA border, over Gasbury, VA."
Here's what we know about this fireball.
According to 11Alive, scientists are calling it a bolide. NASA defines this as a really bright meteor that can be seen over a very wide area.
NASA confirmed that it was traveling at a speed of 30,000 miles per hour, first spotted about 48 miles above Oxford, GA.
The meteor, a three-foot-wide asteroidal fragment weighing over a ton, disintegrated 27 miles above West Forest, GA. This caused a mid-air release of energy equivalent to 20 tons of TNT.
According to social media posts and news outlets, a piece of this fireball, a rock, had crashed through someone's roof, according to Henry County Emergency Management.
Here are more posts and sightings of the fireball in the sky.
Vanessa Countryman is the Trending Topics Reporter for the the Deep South Connect Team Georgia. Email her at Vcountryman@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: What was the fireball in Georgia on Thursday? What meteorologists say
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