Recently, the people residing at the Southeast US witnessed a marvellous cosmic show in the night sky. It was a streak of bright light. No, it wasn't a huge rocket or some alien vehicle approaching our home planet. Then what was it?
It was extraordinarily vivid fireball meteor, which appeared in the night sky above Alabama. The fireball made the appearance at the said place on Friday at about 1:19 a.m. ET and NASA's all sky cameras in the region captured it in action.
"Early results indicate the fireball, which was at least 40 times as bright as the Full Moon, was caused by a small asteroid 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter," NASA stated on Facebook.
According to the American space agency, there are chances that the meteor's some small pieces have made it to the ground. However, as of now, it is not clear as to whether or not any small chunk has made it all the way through Earth's atmosphere.
The American Meteor Society (AMS) also reported that they have information from 44 people, who saw the meteor fireball that night from the ground.
"Looked like a big bright blue ball of light falling from the sky with the trail of light behind it," one of the AMS users, Channing G. from Rockvale, Tennessee said. "The entire sky lit up bright blue. I was on the road next to an empty field with no street lights. It's was extremely bright," he added.
As per AMS, these kinds of meteor fireballs enter our home planet's atmosphere almost every day. We can't catch glimpse of them, as they mostly appear over the oceans or areas that are far from the cities.
