A huge fireball meteor shot across the sky above Lake Erie just after sunset Monday (Oct. 21), videos show.
Witnesses in 10 states, stretching from Michigan to North Carolina, reported spotting the blazing meteor around 7 p.m. ET. So far, the American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 534 reports of the fiery space rock. Experts estimated the meteor’s trajectory and found that it likely ended just offshore from Erie, Pennsylvania.
The fireball occurred at an altitude of about 50 miles (80 kilometers), meaning it was visible across several U.S. states and in Canada, EarthSky reported. This fireball is one of the largest documented in recent months, according to the website.
Footage of the fireball was captured by Brad Hague (above) and Ryan Connor (below) among other witnesses.
It appears to have been a random event and unrelated to the currently active Taurid meteor shower. The Taurids peak from late October to mid-November and can produce a handful of visible events per hour, according to Live Science’s sister site Space.com.
Monday’s fireball zipped across the sky from west to east, first appearing offshore in Lake County, Ohio. Its estimated trajectory, mapped by the AMS, shows it covered a distance of roughly 60 miles (100 km) above Lake Erie — the fourth-largest by surface area of North America’s five great lakes.
Fireballs are exceptionally bright meteors, and meteors are space rocks that enter Earth’s atmosphere. As they do so, the rock burns up, creating a streak of light. Fireballs occur every day across the world, but they are a rare spectacle to witness, because they are over in a flash and often camouflaged by daylight.
A recent “daylight” fireball over New York City was seen by only a few dozen people but heard by hundreds due to a loud boom that resounded as far as New Jersey. The meteor likely created the boom as it crashed through Earth’s atmosphere, experts said.
