Less than two weeks after a bright fireball lit up the sky above the Great Lakes, scattering space pebbles on their shores, another spectacular meteor impressed skywatchers in the Northeast.
The streak of light that sliced through the sky on Thursday (Dec. 1) at about 7:30 p.m. EST (0030 GMT on Dec. 2), was seen by at least 737 witnesses across the states of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, and South and North Carolina according to the American Meteor Society (opens in new tab) (AMS). Sightings in Canada’s Ontario province were also reported.
Quite a few doorbell cameras as well as meteocams (cameras aimed skyward to capture fireballs) captured the meteor, prompting their owners to proudly share the footage with the AMS as well as on Twitter.
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“Just watched a gorgeous green & orange bolide zoom to Earth east of Granville — anyone else see a meteor tonight in eastern Ohio?” Twitter user Jeff Gill (opens in new tab) shared shortly after the event.
His tweet elicited quite a few responses from other lucky witnesses.
Phil Haddad from Pittsburgh was even luckier, catching the fireball on his doorbell camera.
“I don’t often tweet, but when I do it’s because I captured a meteor on my doorbell cam #pittsburgh #meteor,” he said, sharing the footage (opens in new tab) proudly on Twitter.
Another Twitter user, Robert Tinney from Cleveland, responded by sharing his doorbell cam (opens in new tab) footage.
No further information about the nature of this space rock, which AMS labeled 9579-2022, has been made available so far, including whether any of it could have reached the ground.
On Nov. 19, fragments of a 3-foot (1 meter) space rock fell in the same region on the shores of Lake Ontario. Astronomers detected that space rock three hours before it entered Earth’s atmosphere and were able to calculate where it might hit the ground. The rock was only the sixth ever detected before smashing into our planet.
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