Extremely bright fireball in northern U.S. and Canada captured on video
A large fireball streaked through the night sky above the northeastern United States in the early hours of Tuesday morning, allowing lucky people on the ground to catch sight of the extremely bright cosmic object.
The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received about 330 reports of the fireball seen above Ontario, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and other states on May 17 at about 12:50 a.m. ET.
You May Also Like
Many of the reports appear to be clustered around the Atlantic coast in Maine, according to a map from the AMS which shows a best guess for the trajectory of the speeding meteor.
Some observers on the ground even heard a sound from the the fireball.
"There was a 3-5 min delay from the time I saw it to the boom I heard and felt, very loud and shook the home," Craig C. in Canton, Maine wrote in an AMS report. "Unlike anything I have ever experienced before."
"This is not a prank, I honestly thought there was a fire in the backyard which is why I looked out the window and saw it, but that's how bright it was," Chelsea M. in Winthrop, Maine, said in her report.
"Scared me because I've never seen something like that before."
Another report from Knickle R. who was fishing in the Atlantic Ocean says that the object "looked like it fell into the ocean."
One particularly impressive photo shows the fireball above tugboats in Portsmouth Harbor in New Hampshire.
Other observers on the ground also managed to snag some video of the fireball.
Fireballs are produced when relatively small pieces of dust, rock, ice or even human-made space junk enter Earth's atmosphere, burning up in the process.
Earth is pummeled with cosmic dust every day, but spotting a bright fireball is still a somewhat rare event.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
