Where did the meteorite hit in Ohio? NASA confirms boom near Cleveland was a 7-ton meteor
NASA says a loud boom, heard across multiple U.S. states on Tuesday, was caused by a meteor caught in several eyewitness videos.
NASA has confirmed that a loud boom heard in multiple U.S. states appears to have been caused by a seven-ton meteor whose fireball was caught on camera as it burned up in the skies above North America.
On Tuesday morning Eastern Time, the meteor was seen by eyewitnesses in 10 states, the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Ontario, NASA said in a statement.
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an employee of the U.S.’s National Weather Service captured video footage of the meteor:
The American Meteor Society has also shared several videos of the event, such as this footage caught by a resident in Parma, Ohio:
What exactly is a meteor? And a meteorite?
Also dubbed a “shooting star”, a meteor is a space rock that hits the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, NASA says. Amid the extreme temperatures that arise as the meteor tries to penetrate our planet’s protective layer, the rock burns up - although fragments may survive.
If any part of the meteor does make it through the atmosphere and impact with the ground, it’s known as a meteorite.
Where did the meteor fall?
“An analysis of all currently available data places first visibility of the meteor at an altitude of 50 miles above Lake Erie, off the beaches of Lorain in northern Ohio,” NASA said.
“Moving east of south at 40,000 miles per hour, the fireball - caused by a small asteroid nearly 6 feet in diameter and weighing about 7 tons - traveled over 34 miles through the upper atmosphere before fragmenting 30 miles over Valley City, north of Medina [in northeastern Ohio].”
The U.S. state space agency added that the boom - reportedly heard not only in Ohio, but also in states such as New York and Pennsylvania - occurred when the object fragmented over Valley City.
“The asteroid unleashed an energy of 250 tons of TNT when it fragmented, resulting in a pressure wave which propagated to the ground, causing the booms and explosive noises heard by many of the public,” NASA said.
The agency added that meteorites may have hit the ground “in the vicinity of Medina County”.
“You may not hear them, but...”
Speaking to Fox8 Cleveland, the astronomer Jay Reynolds said meteors come into contact with the Earth’s atmosphere more frequently than many may think, leading surviving meteorites to hit our planet’s surface.
“You may not hear them, but a lot of times, they do fall and they are recovered at some point,” Reynolds said.
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