Fireball in the Sky!

The NASA All Sky Fireball Network detected this beauty on May 16, 2013 at 03:11:50 UTC.  Observed by 6 meteor cameras, this fireball penetrated deep into the atmosphere, making it down to an altitude of 36 km (22 miles).

A view of the fireball from Cartersville, Georgia.  (NASA/MEO)

The 350 gram meteoroid responsible for this brilliant display entered the atmosphere at around 22 km/s (49,000 mph) — slow for a meteoroid! — and decelerated to about 10 km/s (22,000 mph) before disintegrating over northwest Georgia.

Map showing the location of 6 cameras in the NASA All Sky Fireball Network.  Color-coded circles indicate the approximate field of view of each camera.  The meteor’s path is shown in white. (NASA/MEO/D. Moser)

Calculations indicate a radiant in the constellation Libra.

4 thoughts on “Fireball in the Sky!”

  1. I saw a green fireball in the sky between 12:00 am and 1:00 am last night in York, Pa. It was pretty fast. Not sure what it was.

  2. I believe I saw a meteor enter the Earth’s atmosphere over the sky in O’Fallon, MO around 10:30PM CDT on 5/18/13. There was a bright blueish-green streak that lasted only a couple of seconds. At first, I thought it may have been a firework, however it did not follow typical firework behavior. It behaved nearly identical to many of the accounts on here.

  3. I was on Page AZ on Lake Powell and witnessed a fireball in the night sky at about 10:15 pm. What was it? It was bright had a tail, fizzled out, & lit bright again for a second.

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