Extremely Bright Fireball Lights Up Appalachia and Disappears Over North Carolina (VIDEO)

NASA reported that a bright fireball lit up the Appalachia region before disappearing over North Carolina over the weekend.

In a Facebook Post, NASA reported the fireball was first spotted above Piney Flats, Tennessee, at 1:15 a.m. on Friday and was moving eastward at 31,300 mph.

NASA said in a statement, “The fireball was also detected by several cameras in the region, as well as the Geostationary Lightning Mapper aboard the GOES-16 spacecraft.”

The American Meteor Society received 175 witness reports from people on the ground who saw the bright meteor.

Witness reports came from 10 states, including Maryland, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

‘Very bright’ fireball lights up Appalachia and vanishes over North Carolina, NASA says https://t.co/PKBZgELZcp

— Fort Worth Star-Telegram (@startelegram) September 2, 2024

Per AOL:

A particularly bright fireball recently lit up Appalachia as it streaked across the night sky before vanishing over North Carolina, according to NASA.

The “very bright fireball” was first spotted 45 miles above Piney Flats, Tennessee, at about 1:15 a.m. Friday, Aug. 30, the space agency said in a Facebook post. It was moving eastward at 31,300 mph, NASA said.

“The fireball was also detected by several cameras in the region, as well as the Geostationary Lightning Mapper aboard the GOES-16 spacecraft,” NASA said.

Plenty of people on the ground also saw the object burning brilliantly overhead, according to reports submitted to the American Meteor Society. The AMS received 175 witness reports from 10 states, including Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — though the majority of sightings were clustered within the Appalachian states.

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Many witnesses of the fireball reported hearing loud booms while watching the meteor streak across the night sky.

In a statement, NASA explained the booms by sharing that a fragment of the meteor broke off and “produced an energy of 10 tons of TNT, which generated a pressure wave that propagated to the ground, causing the booms.”