Bright fireballs streak over Texas and Alabama
A bright fireball streaked through the night sky over Texas at 03:18 UTC on September 19, 2018. At 03:10 UTC on September 23, another bright fireball was observed over Alabama.
The American Meteor Society (AMS) received 76 reports about a fireball seen over Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas and Arkansas at 03:18 UTC on September 19. The object entered our atmosphere west of Dallas and ended near Lubbock.
3 people reported delayed sound and 2 concurrent.
Image credit: AMS
As of 10:00 UTC on September 24, the AMS received 70 reports about a fireball seen over Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida and Missouri. 4 people reported delayed sound and 1 concurrent.
"There was considerable cloud cover at the time, so this meteor was detected by only two NASA cameras located in NE Georgia and North Carolina," Bill Cooke of the NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said, as reported by James Spann.
"Their extreme range and the fact that they were positioned along a straight line from the event preclude a trajectory solution at this time, though the data was used to establish the brightness of the fireball, which was close to that of the 1st quarter Moon."
Image credit: AMS
"However, an analysis of the eyewitness accounts puts the origin of the meteor some 90 km (56 miles) above Oak Bowery, Alabama, just north of Auburn. The object was about 13 cm (5 inches) in diameter and weighed around 2 kg (4 pounds)," Cooke said.
It traveled 61 km (38 miles) through the atmosphere before burning up 42 km (26 miles) above the town of Cragford.
"Based on available information, no meteorites are expected to have been produced by this event," Cooke said.
Featured image": Bright fireball over Texas on September 19, 2018. Credit: K. Palivec via AMS
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