@Mojo Ram I am sure knows what I am talking about
The boom and flash of light that broke the predawn quiet and lit up the sky early Thursday was confirmed by NASA officials to be a small asteroid, about 10 feet in diameter, that had entered the Earth's atmosphere above Arizona.
Scientists estimated that the object was moving at more than 40,000 mph when it sped across the Arizona sky shortly before 4 a.m.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
“If Doppler radar is any indication, there are almost certainly meteorites scattered on the ground north of Tucson," a spokesman from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
The Arizona Geological Survey’s seismic network picked up an impact near Payson, and the agency believes that it marks the detonation of the asteroid.
More than 140 people have reported the “bright fireball” that illuminated the sky around 3:57 a.m. Thursday to the American Meteor Society, a spokesman said. Very bright meteors, also referred to as “fireballs,” occur quite frequently over oceans and other inhabited areas but are usually not visible in daylight, the society said.
Dust and meteorites fall to Earth's surface daily, according to the NASA statement, with between 80 and 100 tons of material entering the atmosphere each day.
The object on Thursday was seen primarily from Arizona, but several other witnesses in Utah, New Mexico, California, Texas and Nevada said they saw the fireball as well, the society stated on its website.
Two Chicago men were driving east on Interstate 40 near Kingman for their weekly visit to Arizona for work when one of them captured video of the object on a GoPro.
Mark Olhava said he was sleeping when he woke up to his co-worker’s stunned reaction — his co-worker had just witnessed the asteroid and his camera had captured it all.
Olhava said he immediately downloaded the video and watched it. His video has since been used for several news media accounts from across the state and serves as a key visual to what happened early Thursday.
“He told me when it happened that you could see it coming from a distance and he said it felt like an hour but it happened within seconds,” Olhava said.
"I have to admit, it was pretty cool."
According to the American Meteor Society, up to several thousand meteors are in the Earth’s atmosphere each day; however, the rarity of the fireball is determined by how bright it is — the brighter the meteor, the rarer it is.
The boom and flash of light that broke the predawn quiet and lit up the sky early Thursday was confirmed by NASA officials to be a small asteroid, about 10 feet in diameter, that had entered the Earth's atmosphere above Arizona.
Scientists estimated that the object was moving at more than 40,000 mph when it sped across the Arizona sky shortly before 4 a.m.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
“If Doppler radar is any indication, there are almost certainly meteorites scattered on the ground north of Tucson," a spokesman from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
The Arizona Geological Survey’s seismic network picked up an impact near Payson, and the agency believes that it marks the detonation of the asteroid.
More than 140 people have reported the “bright fireball” that illuminated the sky around 3:57 a.m. Thursday to the American Meteor Society, a spokesman said. Very bright meteors, also referred to as “fireballs,” occur quite frequently over oceans and other inhabited areas but are usually not visible in daylight, the society said.
Dust and meteorites fall to Earth's surface daily, according to the NASA statement, with between 80 and 100 tons of material entering the atmosphere each day.
The object on Thursday was seen primarily from Arizona, but several other witnesses in Utah, New Mexico, California, Texas and Nevada said they saw the fireball as well, the society stated on its website.
Two Chicago men were driving east on Interstate 40 near Kingman for their weekly visit to Arizona for work when one of them captured video of the object on a GoPro.
Mark Olhava said he was sleeping when he woke up to his co-worker’s stunned reaction — his co-worker had just witnessed the asteroid and his camera had captured it all.
Olhava said he immediately downloaded the video and watched it. His video has since been used for several news media accounts from across the state and serves as a key visual to what happened early Thursday.
“He told me when it happened that you could see it coming from a distance and he said it felt like an hour but it happened within seconds,” Olhava said.
"I have to admit, it was pretty cool."
According to the American Meteor Society, up to several thousand meteors are in the Earth’s atmosphere each day; however, the rarity of the fireball is determined by how bright it is — the brighter the meteor, the rarer it is.
