A bright green fireball crossed the sky over the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada in the past November 19thcausing surprise among witnesses who reported seeing a helicopter-like object drifting silently through the air before lighting up large swaths of the night like enormous lightning.
The luminous green object was a small meteor detected by astronomers only three hours before it crossed the Earth’s atmosphere, caught fire and broke into hundreds of pieces, the scientific portal announced. Live Science.
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) most of those pieces probably crashed directly into Lake Ontarioalthough some small pieces may have impacted on land to the east of Grimsby, while large masses could have landed near McNab.
About this sighting, the International Meteor Organization announced that it received at least 61 reports from people who witnessed the green fireball in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the nearby province of Ontario, Canada.
Users on social networks posted photos and videos of this amazing event:
Las fireballs are meteorites exceptionally bright that normally originate from asteroids or parts of comets orbiting the sun, according to the NASA .
According to Live Science, the green fireball of November 19, now officially called 2022 WJ1, it was probably a small asteroid measuring no more than a meter in diameter.
When space rocks like these enter Earth’s atmosphere, they heat up and slow down due to intense friction, producing a visible trail of fiery light behind them, and depending on a meteor’s composition, also it can glow green as it falls towards its destination.
Fireballs are generally considered harmless.as, since most of its pieces burn up in the atmosphere before impacting Earth. However, there may be some rare exceptions.
As happened on November 5 when a man in California claimed that a fireball burned down his house after it appeared in the sky moments before. However, experts from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are still investigating the cause of the fire.