An extremely rare “daytime fireball” meteor was recently spotted streaking across sunny blue skies over the eastern United States after a refrigerator-sized space rock exploded and unleashed a powerful sonic boom. The unusual event, which was also visible from space, may have rained small meteorite fragments over the local area, experts say.
The 6-foot-wide (1.8-meter) asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere Tuesday (March 17) at about 8:57 a.m. EDT and began burning up in the sky above Lake Erie in northern Ohio at a speed of about 40,000 mph (64,400 km/h), according to a NASA report. The flaming space rock, which weighed about 7 tons (6.4 tons), then broke apart about 30 miles (48 km) above the town of Valley City near Akron, creating a bright flash that lasted up to seven seconds.
Several eyewitnesses and security cameras recorded the explosionand at least 200 people – from states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, as well as parts of Canada – reported seeing the incident to the American Meteor Society (AMS).
The article continues below
Several people along the meteor’s path reported hearing a loud bang from the sky, which was later confirmed to be a sonic boom from the fragmenting space rock, according to a posts on the social platform X by the Cleveland Division of the National Weather Service.
The streaking fireball was also visible from space and was captured on camera by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-19 weather satellite, which orbits Earth at an altitude of about 22,000 miles (35,500 km), Live Science’s sister site That was reported by Space.com.
Fireball meteors occur when falling space rocks are overheated due to high levels of friction from the surrounding air, according to AMS. This eventually causes the object to break apart, which creates a bright flash of light.
These explosions can be extremely powerful. The last fireball, for example, likely exploded with the equivalent force of 250 tons (227 tons) of TNT and triggered shock waves that “could have shaken houses” on the ground, according to the NASA report.
Most fireball meteors are spotted at night, when they are much more visible. However, the light shows can be so bright that they briefly outshine the sun in the daytime sky. These super bright “daytime fireballs” are often reported along with sonic booms.
Most fireball fragments burn up before reaching the ground or are too small to be noticed. However, particularly violent space rocks, such as the one that exploded over Ohio, can produce meteorites that impact the Earth’s surface.
“When an extraordinarily large meteor (beach ball size or larger) enters the atmosphere, it often survives down to the lower atmosphere where the air molecules are dense enough to carry sound.” Robert Lunsforda meteor observer with AMS told Space.com. Therefore, the sonic boom heard during this event “is a good indication that the fireball produced fragments on the ground.”
If they were meteorites, AMS simulations suggest they most likely landed somewhere “near Akron,” Lunsford added.
Most fireball fragments land in unpopulated areas and therefore pose little threat and can be very difficult to find. But this is not always the case. For example, just nine days before this event, on March 8, about a dozen meteorites fell on a city in Germany during a luminous fireball event—one of which punched a big hole through the roof of a family home.
Look at
