Cameras captured a bright ball cutting through the daytime sky.
Residents of several eastern US states witnessed a spectacular celestial phenomenon: a bright object suddenly appeared over Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, leaving a trail of light behind it, and a loud explosion was heard a moment later.
Phys.org writes about this
Eyewitnesses say that the celestial ball glowed with a bright light, its flight was accompanied by a hum and vibration – in some houses, the glass rattled, and the windows almost cracked. Some residents even reported that they felt the walls shake. Videos from surveillance cameras that recorded the amazing phenomenon quickly spread on social networks.
Experts explain that it is most likely a meteor that entered the Earth's atmosphere. Senior meteorologist Dylan Lusk of the National Weather Service noted that satellites that usually record lightning registered a flash of light as the object entered the atmosphere.
“The object not only created a fireball, but also a shock wave. This indicates that the body was large and fast enough to cause such a powerful reaction,” Lusk commented to local media.
Although the final identification of the object has not yet been made, experts are inclined to believe that it was a small meteor. Its dimensions most likely did not exceed several meters – otherwise the consequences of the impact would have been more serious.
At the same time, although space debris could theoretically cause such a phenomenon, given the force of the explosion, this option is unlikely. Jokes about “aliens”, of course, were not long in coming, but astronomers are convinced: everything is within the limits of usual cosmic processes.
The search for possible meteor debris is still ongoing, but the location of the fall is difficult to determine due to the speed and nature of the explosion. According to preliminary estimates, most meteors of this type burn up completely in the dense layers of the atmosphere, leaving behind nothing but a spectacular spectacle.
Let us recall that earlier we wrote about Ukrainians noticing a bright flash in the sky. Residents of several regions of Ukraine could observe the unusual glow – Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Zaporizhia.
