NASA Cameras Catch Speeding Fireball
There was a bright fireball visible over north Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and South Carolina at 7:02:36 PM EST last night. All 4 NASA meteor cameras in the SouthEast picked it up 48 miles above the town of Rossville, just south of Chattanooga, moving at 9 miles per second (32,400 mph) slightly north of east. The meteor appears to have ablated (“burned up”) at 23 miles altitude SW of of Ocoee, TN. Though unusual, it is unlikely that this object produced any noticeable meteorites on the ground.
Orbit indicates that this meteor was asteroidal in origin, with an aphelion (farthest point from the Sun) in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
