Fireball visible from Florida, likely a meteor, experts say

SUNRISE, Fla. – Did you see it Monday night? The incredible streak of light across the night sky that was spotted along Florida’s Atlantic coast?

While there are still questions about where it came from, experts say it was likely a meteor.

“What we know is it’s a meteor that came in. Where it’s coming from is up for debate,” said Jason Matter, VP of the South Florida Amateur Astronomy Association. “Some people think it was part of the 2021 GW4 asteroid that passed very close to Earth, maybe a piece of it broke off and got into Earth, or it could have been something else that we didn’t see on our own.”

Dr. Angela Colbert of the Frost Science Museum said that while there are many possibilities, a meteor “is the most likely. It could even have been a piece of space junk that for some reason fell into the atmosphere and jumped into the atmosphere. “

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Colbert, the Knight VP of Education at Frost, said we’ll probably never know for sure because it will never hit Earth’s surface.

“These happen all the time around the world, so formal investigations may never take place,” she said. “We may never quite know what this is.”

Matter also said that meteors hit Earth’s atmosphere quite often, but what made these so unique was how many people saw it.

“When something comes in, it usually comes in, burns and burns out pretty quickly. This was seen all the way from North Florida to the Bahamas, so the fire lasted quite a long time, ”said Matter.

Home surveillance cameras and webcams caught it at exactly 10:16 pm

The green color that some clips show is because the nickel in the meteor burns up during its journey.

As for why it made that big flash, Colbert said there’s an explanation for that too.

“It could just have been the way it hit the atmosphere that it created this great what is known as a fireball,” Colbert said. “It’s called a fireball when there is a flash brighter than how Venus shines in the night sky.”

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