Bright Meteor Fireball Lit up Carolina Skies During SpaceX Launch

As many stayed outside their homes on Wednesday night to see four astronauts departing for the International Space Station in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, they witnessed another huge surprise.

Sky Gazer Surprised as Meteor Briefly Streaked Across the Skies

A meteor quickly streaked through the skies of Martin, Edgecombe, and Nash counties.

It was spotted for just 3.5 seconds, according to more than 200 reports to the American Meteor Society and NASA cameras in western North Carolina, starting approximately 48 miles above a location northeast of Greenville and heading northwest at around 33,000 mph.

The size of the fireball was estimated to be approximately like the size of a football and weigh about 40 to 45 pounds before it disintegrated about 28 miles southeast of Rocky Mount based on those accounts, notably the brightness of the object.

It's a true event if you've never seen it before, and you're left thinking, "What in the world was that?" said Elizabeth Gardner, a meteorologist with WRAL.

It's also possible that it was part of the Taurid meteor shower, which peaks this week. It was most certainly a piece of Asteroid 2004 TG10, a half-mile-wide asteroid that travels through this portion of the solar system every 3.3 years. The asteroid might be a fragment of Comet 2P Encke.

Footage of the Event

The object brightens noticeably in films, seeming to split apart towards the horizon. Bolides or fireballs are the terms used by scientists to describe brilliant objects like these, which are compared to the planet Venus.

The parts of the space rock that made it to the earth are known as meteorites if the space rock survived the fall, which is very improbable.

An uncountable number of fireballs pass through the sky every day, Gardner said, but their route are often over the sea, they either happen during the day, or no one is out viewing them.

It was simply an extraordinary incident that folks went out to observe the rocket launch and happened to witness the event, says the author.

Did You See the Fireball?

Anyone who saw the fireball is encouraged to contact the American Meteor Society(AMS) to report what they observed. To calculate a trajectory, crowd-sourced reports are employed.

You may report a fireball sighting using the AMS Fireball Report Form if you observed one in the night sky.

The American Meteor Society (AMS) has been collecting online reports of suspected fireballs from the general public since 2005. The Fireball Report web form guides you through explaining what you observed in a manner that scientists researching meteors can understand.

The information you offer may be coupled with that of other eyewitnesses to generate a good approximation of the fireball's trajectory and to assess whether or not a ground fall happened. Based on the location of the witnesses and the time of the sighting, all reports are reviewed, assessed, and categorized into events.

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