Fireball outshines moon
FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 05, 2013 10:21 AM EDT | UPDATED: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 05, 2013 10:36 AM EDT
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cVlJWPGP7q4?rel=0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="480"></iframe>
A fireball lit up the sky in the southern U.S., and NASA captured it on video.
The asteroid was viewed on August 28 by the border of Tennessee and Georgia.
It weighed more than 100 pounds (45.4 kg) and had a diameter of approximately two feet (0.6 m), according to a blog by Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.
“Recorded by all six NASA cameras in the Southeast, this fireball was one of the brightest observed by the network in 5 years of operations,” Cooke wrote.
“From Chickamauga, Georgia, the meteor was 20 times brighter than the Full Moon; shadows were cast on the ground as far south as Cartersville.”