A huge fireball that shot through the sky at 36,000 miles per hour over Washington DC and New York has caused widespread panic.
The fireball, which was most likely a meteor or a rock from space, entered Earth’s atmosphere and quickly attracted attention as it shot across the sky.
The first reports came in at 9.30pm on Sunday, when the explosion was first discovered. The fireball was seen as far south as Richmond, Virginia, and as far north as New York.
Online users shared dozens of photos and videos Sunday evening showing the major strike – before it died out with a loud bang somewhere in Virginia.
“The amazing thing was how bright it was,” one person tweeted Sunday evening.
A huge fireball that shot through the sky at 36,000 miles per hour and stretched across the skies of Washington, DC and New York caused widespread panic Sunday evening
The fireball, which was most likely a meteor or a rock from space, entered Earth’s atmosphere and quickly attracted attention as it shot across the sky
Experts believe it is likely that the fireball was a meteor that spanned the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
According to the NASA Meteor Watch Facebook page, the fireball was first spotted about 50 miles above Forest Hill, Maryland.
At that time, it was recorded racing through the sky at 36,000 miles per hour.
From there, the fireball traveled to Pennsylvania, according to the site.
“It disintegrated at an altitude of 22 miles over Gnatstown, Pennsylvania, reaching a brightness equivalent to that of a quarter moon and traveling just over 55 miles through the atmosphere,” one post said.
The comments on the post were filled with users describing their own experiences seeing the fireball.
“We saw it on the Long Island Expressway last night!! It was pretty amazing to see!!’ one person wrote.
“I saw this around 9:20 p.m. in Canaan Valley, West Virginia – a bright green meteor with a long tail that was colored coppery orange at the edges! It was wonderful!”
“That’s what I saw last too. It was spectacular. “Very bright and very large.”
On social media, users followed commentators’ comments on the NASA Meteor Watch post.
“I saw it in Metuchen, New Jersey. It was bright green! “One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” wrote Twitter user Collin Gross.
The fireball in photos and videos from the Mid-Atlantic Sunday evening
The fireball in a video from the Washington, D.C. area on Sunday
During its short existence, the meteor quickly burned out, emitting an orange hue and a long green tail.
The fireball reportedly reached a brightness equivalent to that of a quarter moon.
Experts believe that the fireball most likely became a bolide as it traveled through the atmosphere. A bolide is a fireball that explodes at the end of its life.
According to the American Meteorological Society, hundreds of people shared reports of the fireball throughout the night.
Some online said the fireball flew silently through the sky, while others said they heard loud noises, including a bang at the end.
The sighting over the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast comes just days after a similar fireball ripped through the sky over Turkey.
Stunning video showed the bright light bursting through the sky, shocking and surprising residents watching the spectacle.
The incidents are common because “several thousand fireball-sized meteors” enter Earth’s atmosphere every day, according to the American Meteor Society.
“Those that occur at night also have little chance of being detected due to the relatively small number of people who notice them,” they say.