We’ve got a pretty crazy story of a massive fireball lighting up the night sky, from DC to even parts of Canada on Febuary 21, 2024.
The American Meteor Society, an organization that keeps its eyes on the sky, started receiving hundreds of reports right after 6:45 p.m. Witnesses from the Great Lakes to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic described seeing a glowing object blazing across the night sky. And based on these reports, the society believes what was witnessed was a fireball—a bright meteor burning up as it entered our atmosphere, with its possible path traced over Pennsylvania.
NASA tells us that meteoroids, which are essentially space rocks, become meteors when they enter Earth’s atmosphere. And if they hit the ground? They’re called meteorites. Here’s the kicker, though: less than 5% of these space travelers actually survive the journey through our atmosphere due to the intense friction and speeds of greater than 25,000 miles per hour.
Despite the hundreds of reports and even security camera footage from Linden, Virginia, showing this bright meteor, the American Meteor Society hasn’t received any confirmation that Wednesday’s fireball left any meteorites behind. But, if it did, it’s likely to have landed in the southwestern areas of the Northeast, based on its trajectory.
Over Hagerstown – pardon my language, was a natural reaction!https://t.co/Vf9m3MLiXB
— James Ellis (@JamBlaEll) February 22, 2024
And just to give you an idea of how rare and valuable these space rocks can be, a museum in Maine once offered a $25,000 reward for remnants of a fireball. Yet, despite the tantalizing offer, no one has publicly claimed to have found a piece of that outer space visitor.
What’s even more fascinating is that meteorites, these pieces of space matter that reach our planet, are mostly made of metallic, rocky material and can vary in size from a small pebble to as large as a fist. Despite the 48.5 tons of space matter that strikes Earth daily, only about 500 meteorites make it to the Earth’s surface each year, and fewer than a dozen are ever recovered.
Scientists have recently made a groundbreaking discovery in Antarctica—a nearly 20-pound meteorite containing some of the oldest materials in our solar system.
Just seeing this now. Reviewed my upstairs camera that I have pointed to the NW sky for sunsets and meteors and looks like we caught this one in the bottom right of the video! @capitalweather https://t.co/mZXHEop405 pic.twitter.com/hOBF9Vyrzj
— Richard Barnhill (@wolfpackwx) February 22, 2024
