A fireball travelling at 47,000 mph lit up the night sky over North Carolina and Tennessee on Thursday, and NASA says it was a two-inch fragment of an asteroid that burned up in about 10 seconds.
The meteor first appeared around 7:45 p.m. EST above Robbinsville, North Carolina, about 53 miles up. Four of NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network cameras tracked it as it moved slightly south of west, covering roughly 120 miles before it disintegrated 25 miles above East Ridge, Tennessee, just southeast of Chattanooga.
Witnesses described it as the “biggest ball of fire” they had ever seen, glowing blue, white and orangish yellow. NASA put its peak brightness at magnitude -6.1, brighter than Venus normally appears in the sky.
For all the drama, the object was small. NASA’s analysis of the camera footage showed a piece of asteroid about two inches across and weighing six ounces. No audible booms were reported when it broke apart.
The fireball arrived during the Taurid meteor shower, which is active through November, but NASA said it was not a Taurid. The agency logged the sighting as event 20261106-004521.
Source: New York Post
