Meteor streaks across eastern sky, triggers sonic boom
Many people heard it, some saw it, and cameras captured it. A 7-ton meteor traveling at 45,000 miles per hour shot across the eastern sky Tuesday morning.
A National Weather Service employee in Pittsburgh took a video of the fireball streaking across the sky.
Witnesses in ten states, along with Washington, D.C., and Ontario, Canada, saw it and many heard it, mistaking it for an explosion.
What officials are saying
NASA posted an image of the meteor on X, and confirmed the loud boom came from the meteor, saying it occurred when the meteor fragmented, “resulting in a pressure wave.”
As the large piece of space rock broke apart, it released energy equivalent to about 250 tons of TNT, causing some homes to shake like an earthquake.
Experts believe the meteor fragmented over Valley City, Ohio, with pieces likely falling in Medina County, just west of Akron and about 45 miles south of Cleveland. They say it traveled approximately 34 miles before fragmenting.
NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke said it could have been a small asteroid that burned up in the atmosphere or a fragment from a larger one. They’re still working to determine exactly which.
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“Some fragments, some tiny pieces of it, actually made it to the ground,” Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office, told CBS News.
This is not the first meteor to be seen across Ohio’s skies in recent months. According to CBS, one was spotted in mid-February and another was caught on camera earlier this month.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
