34 kg meteorite brighter than full moon crashes into US

Early on August 2, a fireball streaked across the southeastern United States sky, most likely debris from an unidentified comet.

34 kg meteorite brighter than full moon crashes into US — Meteorite streaks across US sky on August 2. Video: *Space*

The American Meteor Society (AMS) received 74 reports of a fireball on the night of the August full moon from eyewitnesses in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. Some reports also said the fireball produced a sonic boom loud enough to shake buildings and wake people.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. The initial flash was so bright and brighter than the streetlights in the yard I was standing in. That’s why I looked up and saw it,” said Dustin L., one of the witnesses to the fireball. The light was bright enough to overshadow the full moon in the east, according to another report from observer Jack W.

Initially, many believed the fireball was from the Perseid meteor shower or one of two other ongoing meteor showers. However, its path did not match either of those showers.

The fireball was most likely a comet fragment, according to meteorite expert Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteorite Environment Office. Cooke said the fireball was a comet fragment about 30 centimeters in diameter and weighing 34 kilograms.

"The object entered Earth's atmosphere about 80 kilometers above the town of Krypton, Kentucky, moving southeast at 60,000 kilometers per hour. It traveled 105 kilometers in the atmosphere, then disintegrated about 48 kilometers above Duffield, Virginia," Cooke said.

Based on acoustic data recorded by the University of Western Ontario, Cooke said the fireball produced an explosion equivalent to about 2 tons of TNT. At its peak, the object was five times brighter than the full moon. Scientists have not yet determined which comet the debris came from.

Thu Thao (According to Space )

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