Last week, the American Meteor Society posted a stunning video of a fireball blazing across the sky. The organization uploaded footage recorded from the porch of a residence in Rowland Pond, North Carolina, showing a large fireball falling from the sky.
The fireball, described as an “exceptionally bright” meteor, “skimmed the coast of North Carolina” around 7:40 p.m., becoming “visible 48 miles above the ocean off Camp Lejeune,” NASA Meteor Watch stated. And it was reportedly one of at least five fireballs seen over the U.S. in the same night.
The American Meteor Society said that it received 148 fireball reports from Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia. The North Carolina fireball had the most eyewitness reports, with more than 100 people reporting it.
The massive space rock disintegrated after travelling 26 miles through the upper atmosphere at an estimated 32,000 mph. However, it’s still a mystery if a single meteor broke up into multiple smaller fireballs as it descended or if multiple fireballs burnt in the upper atmosphere. Either way, it was a spectacular sight for anyone who witnessed it.
“There is more than the usual amount of uncertainty in the trajectory solution due to all the observers being located to the west of the fireball,” reads NASA’s post.
A video of one of the large fireballs burning fiercely in the sky was released by Meteor Watch. Several other videos were also uploaded by the American Meteor Society.
According to the American Meteor Society, fireballs are “exceptionally bright” meteors that burn brighter than Venus in the night sky.
“Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day,” the American Meteor Society’s FAQ reads. “The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight.”