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WEATHERLY, CARBON COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Multiple eyewitnesses were able to catch a glimpse of the fireball that blazed through earth’s atmosphere and the northeastern part of Pennsylvania Sunday night.
In the video above provided by Tom Wildoner, the fireball was caught scorching through the night sky as it passed over Weatherly, in Carbon County.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) explained in a release that on September 3 around 9:23 p.m., data indicated a meteor became visible 47 miles above Forest Hill in Maryland and flew northwest at 36,000 miles per hour, burning up 22 miles above Gnatstown, Pennsylvania.
Officials from NASA say that the meteor got as bright as a quarter moon and traveled just over 55 miles through the atmosphere.
NASA officials also explained infrasound detectors in the area showed a weak signal from the fireball, which allowed officials to estimate the energy from the meteor as it disintegrated to be equivalent to one ton of TNT.
Eyewitnesses heard sounds and booms from the meteor which, as NASA explained, were caused by the pressure waves made during the break up of the fireball.
An orbital trajectory showed that, according to NASA officials, the meteor was a fragment, likely six inches or so in diameter, from an asteroid possibly from the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.
NASA also thanked the American Meteor Society for giving eyewitness accounts of the event.
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