ATLANTA (AP) — More than 200 people across a half-dozen southern U.S. states have now reported witnessing a mysterious object streak across the sky on Thursday, and the nation’s space agency now believes it was a remarkably bright meteor known as a bolide.
Most sightings of the streak of light and fireball came from Georgia and South Carolina around 12:30 p.m., according to a report from the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City, Georgia.
Here’s what to know about the object:
Pieces of meteor believed to be on ground in Georgia
NASA determined that it was about the size of a shopping cart as it streaked through the sky. Scientists were able to track the meteor’s path after analyzing eyewitness accounts, images from cameras and data from satellites and weather radar.
The meteor was first spotted over Oxford, Georgia, as it moved southwest across the sky, according to Bill Cooke, a scientist at NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama.
It broke apart over the small community of West Forest, Georgia, “unleashing an energy of about 20 tons of TNT,” Cooke said in a statement. That created booms heard by many residents in the area.
The meteor falling to the ground was detected by multiple weather radars, and many meteorites are believed to be on the ground in the Blacksville, Georgia area, NASA said.
People express amazement in witness accounts
As of Friday afternoon, at least 215 reports of the object have poured into the American Meteor Society with many people expressing wonder and amazement in their reports.
“It was a bright fireball,” a woman in Bethlehem, Georgia, wrote.
“It did have a bright tail that disappeared with it, and left behind a smoke trail,” she added. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
A man in Milledgeville, Georgia, reported that “I believe it hit the ground.”
The roof of a Georgia home is pierced
A resident of Henry County, Georgia, reported a rock coming through their roof around the time they heard the sonic boom from the fireball. It left behind a hole in the ceiling about the size of a golf ball and a crack in a laminate floor at the home southeast of Atlanta, according to the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City, Georgia.
“We are presuming that a piece of the object fell through their roof,” the weather service said in a brief statement on social media.
Dashboard and doorbell cameras across several states in the southeastern U.S. states caught glimpses of the fireball that appeared to be plummeting straight down.
Broad daylight sighting is rare
Meteors and other space debris frequently enter Earth’s atmosphere, but it is rare for an object to be so bright it can easily be seen in broad daylight. Videos of the event showed clear skies on Thursday, allowing many to see the meteor falling.
“First time to ever see an event in daylight like this,” a man in Cumming, Georgia, north of Atlanta, said in his report to the meteor society.
“It was so bright in the middle of the day… brighter than the sun,” a woman in Dublin, Georgia reported.
Bright fireballs are caused by friction as an object enters the atmosphere and slows down considerably. Almost all objects break into minuscule pieces before striking the ground, according to NASA.
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