NASA has many programs that don’t always grab the public’s attention, such as a rover on Mars. But the All Sky Fireball Network, a collection of 15 cameras pointed at the sky, grabbed some attention today by capturing one of its interesting objects as it lit up the sky over Pennsylvania.
NASA’s meteor watch group has used its Facebook page to provide some basic statistics about the rock that generated this fireball: Just over half a meter in diameter but about 250 kg, it was moving at more than 70,000 km/h then it entered the atmosphere and moved from west to east. It was tracked from an altitude of 60 miles to 21 miles.
The video below shows the visitor’s footage captured by one of the All Sky Fireball Network’s cameras.
The visitor, seen through NASA’s cameras.
The event was picked up by three different NASA cameras, making it extremely well documented. Calculations of the rock’s trajectory suggest that it originated in the asteroid belt and that any significant pieces that survived the plunge through the atmosphere will be found somewhere northeast of Pittsburgh. NASA has already created an animation that shows a meteor’s perspective of the rock’s approach to Earth.