New Delhi: An extremely bright fireball lit the pre-dawn sky over much of Arizona early Thursday morning, June 2, turning the dark into light.
According to NASA, the fireball was due to a small asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere above Arizona just before 4 a.m. local (MST) time and turned the night into day for a brief flashing moment.
NASA says that the asteroid - estimated at 5 feet (1-2 meters) in diameter - with a mass of a few tons and a kinetic energy of approximately half a kiloton was moving at about 40,200 miles per hour (64,700 kilometers per hour).
Watch NASA's meteor camera video of June 2, 2016 Arizona fireball below!
However, there are no reports of any damage or injuries, but the fireball event did leave smoke trails that were caught on video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN--uCY0LUY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sOqPOL1gIM.
“There are no reports of any damage or injuries—just a lot of light and few sonic booms,” said Bill Cooke in NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “If Doppler radar is any indication, there are almost certainly meteorites scattered on the ground north of Tucson.”
Although the fireball was seen primarily from Arizona, witnesses from Utah, New Mexico, California, Texas and Nevada also reported the event.
(Source: NASA)
