At least 8 fireballs over the United States on September 24

ByTeo Blašković
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Image credit: AMS

At least 8 fireballs were seen over the United States on September 24, 2021, with the largest grouping of eyewitnesses reports — more than 130 — associated with an event that occurred at 23:41 UTC (19:40 EDT) over North Carolina.

The fireball became visible 77 km (48 miles) above the ocean off Camp Lejeune, moving NE at 51 500 km/h (32 000 mph).1

It disintegrated 45 km (28 miles) above Morehead City, after traveling 42 km (26 miles) through Earth's upper atmosphere.

Fireball over North Carolina on September 24, 2021 – heatmap. Credit: AMS

The American Meteor Society (AMS) received 21 reports for a fireball over Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee around 00:08 UTC, 15 reports for a fireball over Iowa and Illinois at 00:53 UTC, and 19 reports for another one over Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina at 17:34 UTC.2

Other fireball events on September 24 still have less than 10 eyewitness reports.

References:

1 NASA Meteor Watch – FB

2 American Meteor Society – September 24 / US – Fireball events with more than 5 reports.

Teo Blašković founded The Watchers in 2011 and edited it until 2026, covering seismic and volcanic activity, extreme weather, space weather and near-Earth objects. Articles on this page are his archive.

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5 Comments

  1. Did anyone see another this morning approximately 1:40am? I swore I could hear it too.., bright green tail then massive orange yellow fireball before it poofed into darkness.. it was awesome!!

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