A fireball 10 times brighter than the moon streaked across the skies over Arkansas, Louisiana and Misssippi early Wednesday, creating a loud boom and treating dozens of people to a dazzling light show, according to NASA.
The fireball was seen by onlookers around 8:03 a.m. Near the town of Alcorn, Mississippi, the CDT streaking above the Mississippi River. According to a NASA post, sonic booms andamp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;
One resident of Vicksburg, Mississippi, said she saw an orange fireball the size of a basketball, with a white tail behind it.
People on Earth were not the only ones treated to a light show. The space rock broke up in the atmosphere and several brilliant flashes were detected by the Glm onboard the two satellites.
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This is one of the nicer events I have seen in the GLM data, according to the NASA post.
According to NASA, the fireball was spawned by a piece of an asteroid that was about 1 meter in diameter and weighed about 90 pounds. It was traveling at over 50,000 mph as it entered the atmosphere, and then broke up into smaller pieces, before falling over the swamps near Minorca, Louisiana, according to NASA.
Fireballs shine with a light brighter than Venus and are stunningly bright. This fireball was bolide, meaning it was brilliant, but it also had a tail that exploded in a bright flash of light.
The fireball was spotted by more than 30 people.
It was originally published on Live Science.
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