As AP reported, the fireball was visible even in daylight around 9 (local time) on Tuesday and was observed in several states, from Wisconsin to Maryland. The American Meteorological Society received hundreds of reports, and NASA confirmed that the object was approximately 1.8 meters in diameter.
“It looks like a bolide, an exceptionally bright meteor that is formed when a small asteroid or a fragment of other cosmic matter falls into the Earth’s atmosphere and burns up rapidly,” said astronomer Carl Hergenrother, quoted by the agency.
The meteor appeared at an altitude of about 50 miles over Lake Erie before traveling more than 55 miles through the upper atmosphere before disintegrating over Valley City. According to NASA estimates, the object released energy equal to about 250 tons of TNT during its disintegration.
Meteorite over Ohio. Residents heard a loud bang
Tens of thousands of people in northern Ohio heard a loud bang, and some residents felt the ground shake. A seismograph in Lorain County recorded tremors accompanying the shock wave created by the breakup of a celestial body.
The noise was heard by, among others, employees of the National Weather Service in Cleveland who felt visible vibrations of the building’s structure. So far, there has been no information about finding specific fragments of rock.
“There may have been some small pieces of debris that fell, but most of it (the meteorite) burned up in the atmosphere,” meteorologist Brian Mitchell said.
As the Washington Post wrote, the phenomenon was visible for about 5.5 seconds. in a wide area, including, among others, the states of Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan and western New York.
