Fireball flies across the sky and causes sonic boom
A 'daytime fireball' was caught on video in the sky over South Carolina – causing a sonic boom, according to the American Meteor Society. CNN has reached out to emergency management officials in North Carolina and Tennessee, as well as NASA for comment.
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Fireball sightings reported across the southeastern US
Fireball sightings were reported in multiple states across the southeastern United States during the day on Thursday. The American Meteor Society said it received over 140 reports of fireball sightings Thursday over six states -- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. In northern Georgia, there were "numerous reports" of an earthquake followed by a flash across the sky, according to the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. A citizen in Henry County reported a "rock" went through their ceiling around that time, the office said while sharing photos of the damage on social media. "It appears that either a meteor or space junk crossed the skies of north Georgia just before 12:30 PM," the NWS in Peachtree City said. "That earthquake you felt was the result of the sonic boom from the meteor or space junk." MORE: Daylight fireball meteor may have rattled parts of New York City and New Jersey, NASA says The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told ABC News it found multiple bright flashes of light during the day on Thursday via its lightning flash tracker. One of the flashes was captured between 12:21 p.m. and 12:26 p.m. ET, south of Atlanta. Multiple videos from home security and dashcam footage in South Carolina, verified by ABC News, captured a fireball streaking across the sky around that time. The NOAA's Satellite and Information Service shared a "quick flash" captured around the Virginia-North Carolina border on Thursday. NOAA's lightning mapper can sometimes detect bright meteors -- or bolides -- when they pass through the atmosphere, the office said. Following "many reports" of a fireball across the Southeast, the National Weather Service in Charleston, South Carolina, also said "satellite-based lightning detection shows a streak within cloud free sky" near the Virginia-North Carolina border Thursday. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘It was really, really scary': People across metro in shock as fireball falls from the sky
Videos and eyewitness accounts keep coming in of a fireball falling from space over metro Atlanta. 'It was really, really scary,' said Melanie Whitlock. Whitlock and her daughter, Amber Hudson, heard it and felt it in Covington. [READ: What did you see falling through the sky? A meteor or meteorite?] 'I was even shaking, like, back and forth, and then I was just hearing like the banging sound or whatever, and even a water bottle fell off my nightstand,' Hudson said. It was a meteoroid three feet in diameter weighing more than a ton, according to NASA. It was moving toward the ground at 30,000 miles an hour. 'It sounded like a thunderstorm,' Ashundi Daniel said. TRENDING STORIES: Family pleads for driver to come forward who hit, killed Henry County teen Former judge among 3 arrested following burglary investigation in southeast Georgia Suspect arrested in shooting death of 17-year-old near Clayton County Kroger NASA said people in Oxford saw it first around 12:30 p.m. on Thursday. NASA said it disintegrated 27 miles above West Forest, unleashing an energy of about 20 tons of TNT. Meteorites that survived the fiery fall landed in Henry County. 'Wow! It definitely shook us up,' Whitlock said. Channel 2's Courtney Francisco traced NASA coordinates that show pieces of it landed in a wooded area off Pullin Road in McDonough. They were small but powerful. Henry County Emergency Management Director Ryan Morrison posted photos online that show the damage one meteorite did when it hit a man's roof. 'A small, maybe quarter-of-an-inch hole that came through where the sheetrock was penetrated,' Morrison said. 'The resident was in awe of what happened. The homeowner did not want to talk publicly but told Morrison it sounded like a gunshot. Families are glad it did not hurt him. 'That was scary what we experienced, and nothing fell through the roof. I can only imagine,' Whitlock said.
CNN
5 hours ago
- CNN
Fireball spotted over Southeast US may have been caused by meteor
A rarely seen daytime fireball that may have been dropped by a meteor was spotted across the Southeast on Thursday — creating a sonic boom that blared through the region. The American Meteor Society received numerous reports of a fireball over the region on Thursday afternoon, its website shows. The reports came during the Bootids meteor shower, a lower-level meteor shower that is ongoing this week, according to an American Meteor Society list. 'It looks to be a 'daytime fireball' that caused a sonic boom. This is usually indicative of a (meteor) dropping a fireball, but not always,' Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, told CNN. Seeing a daytime fireball is a rare occurrence: Fireballs are easier to view at night, but have to be much brighter to be visible during the day, the American Meteor Society says. It's also 'quite rare' for sonic booms to be heard on the ground when a fireball occurs, according to the organization. One fireball fell and likely broke apart into at least dozens if not hundreds of fragments, Hankey said. Whether the fireball hit the ground has yet to be confirmed, but there have been reports of a piece of meteorite hitting a home in Henry County, Georgia, he said. Between 11:51 to 11:56 a.m. Thursday, satellite-based lighting detection showed 'a streak within cloud free sky over the NC/VA border,' the National Weather Service in Charleston said on X, correcting the timeframe it had shared in an earlier post. Analysis of satellite-based lightning detection by CNN show additional signatures over the Atlanta area. Elsewhere in Georgia, dashcam video taken at approximately 12:30 p.m. in Forsyth shows a fireball descending to the ground. And in Newton County, the sheriff's office said it received a notification from the National Weather Service that it was likely a meteor, and 'more could possibly be on the way.' A Henry County, Georgia, resident reported that a 'rock' fell through their ceiling around the same time the fireball occurred, according to the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. The object broke through the roof and ceiling before cracking the flooring inside the home. In Lexington County, South Carolina, dashcam video shows a big flash of light falling through the sky Thursday. South Carolina's emergency management division told CNN it is monitoring the situation. Brenda Eckard, 64, from Gilbert, South Carolina, said she was driving home when she saw a 'big flash in the sky come down and disappear.' She first thought it was a meteor that 'almost looked like a firework,' Eckard told CNN Thursday. Eckard then called her husband to check if their house was still standing. A fireball is an unusually bright meteor that reaches a magnitude over -4, which is brighter than Venus, according to the American Meteor Society. Thursday's fireball reached a magnitude of around -14, the organization told CNN, which would make it brighter than the full moon. The brighter the fireball, the more rare the event is, according to the American Meteor Society. 'Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth's atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight,' the organization says. Thursday's fireball was a special type called a bolide that explodes in a bright terminal flash, according to the organization. Bolides happen several dozen times a year 'when our planet is impacted by asteroids too small to reach the ground but large enough to explode upon impact with Earth's atmosphere,' according to NASA. CNN has reached out to emergency management officials in North Carolina and Tennessee. The North American Aerospace Defense Command directed questions to NASA. CNN has reached out to NASA.
