In a video that was uploaded to Facebook, a meteorite that appears to be bright and fiery is seen moving through the sky above a city street. The thing temporarily vanishes into the clouds, reappears, and finally extends into a very long tail.
The video was filmed in Florida’s Daytona Beach, not Texas, on a street corner. You can find the Harvey Avenue street sign, the Beach Express company, and other locations mentioned in the movie near the intersection of Harvey Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach.
William Cooke, a meteoroid specialist at NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, the bright object visible in the video is not a meteor.
When Cooke’s team examined the footage, they also discovered that Daytona Beach was where it was shot. A Space-X launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is around 60 miles from Daytona Beach, is what he thinks he sees.
Marc Fries, a NASA planetary scientist, informed USA TODAY by email that a meteorite fell in south Texas on February 15 even if the video doesn’t show it. On Twitter, there was a video shared of the incident.
The meteorite traveled at a speed of roughly 27,000 miles per hour, according to NASA Meteor Watch, which shared details on the meteorite on Facebook.
The angle and speed at which the object entered the atmosphere, along with weather radar photographs, led NASA to the conclusion that it was likely a meteorite.
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Twitter users posted images and videos of what seemed to be a meteor streaking across the sky in the vicinity, and home security footage captured the Earth trembling and emitting a loud boom when the meteor allegedly touched down.
This meteorite appears to have broken up at a height of 21 miles, as meteorites occasionally do as they move toward Earth. The meteoroid had a diameter of around two feet.
The meteorite doesn’t appear to be causing any harm, according to NASA. However, it had almost the same explosive force as 8 tons of TNT.
Anyone who discovers what they believe to be a piece of this meteorite should get in touch with the Smithsonian Institution and other institutions since they routinely collect meteorites like this.
According to NASA, a car-sized asteroid enters the atmosphere around once a year, but most of the time it burns up before it reaches the surface, leaving behind a dazzling fireball that flashes across the sky. Smaller asteroids are likely to burn up in the atmosphere without affecting Earth.
It is believed that more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles come to Earth every day from space. A football-field-sized meteor that strikes Earth every 2,000 years or so and does major damage.
