‘Fireball' reported across Southeastern US
Scientists said a fireball was seen blazing across the sky on Thursday was the result of a burning meteor.
The meteor was first seen at an altitude of 48 miles above the town of Oxford, Ga., moving southwest at 30,000 miles per hour around noon Eastern time, according to Bill Cooke from NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
People across the Carolinas and Virginia caught a glimpse of the imploding object earlier in the afternoon.
'It disintegrated 27 miles above West Forest, Georgia, unleashing an energy of about 20 tons of TNT. The resulting pressure wave propagated to the ground, creating booms heard by many in that area,' Cooke said in a Thursday statement.
The fireball was produced by an asteroidal fragment 3 feet in diameter, weighing over a ton, according to the scientist.
'At this time, we do not have any information on where the meteor may have landed,' Newton County sheriff's office said in a statement.
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‘Fireball' reported across Southeastern US
Scientists said a fireball was seen blazing across the sky on Thursday was the result of a burning meteor. The meteor was first seen at an altitude of 48 miles above the town of Oxford, Ga., moving southwest at 30,000 miles per hour around noon Eastern time, according to Bill Cooke from NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. People across the Carolinas and Virginia caught a glimpse of the imploding object earlier in the afternoon. 'It disintegrated 27 miles above West Forest, Georgia, unleashing an energy of about 20 tons of TNT. The resulting pressure wave propagated to the ground, creating booms heard by many in that area,' Cooke said in a Thursday statement. The fireball was produced by an asteroidal fragment 3 feet in diameter, weighing over a ton, according to the scientist. 'At this time, we do not have any information on where the meteor may have landed,' Newton County sheriff's office said in a statement.
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