Meteor Streaks Across Daytime Sky in Southeast States, Sparks Search After Breaking Up Over US
Residents of the Southeastern U.S. got a rare look this week at a visitor from outer space when a meteor streaking across the daytime sky caused a spectacle visible from North Carolina to Alabama.
According to ABC News, the American Meteor Society said it received 250 reports of sightings of the object in the air after the incident Thursday.
Emergency crews fanned out in a search for the crash site on the ground.
#BREAKING: At this time Multiple fire departments are actively looking for possible crashed meteor or fire ball that came out of the sky
⁰#UnitedStates | #USA⁰
Multiple fire departments are currently searching for what may have been a meteor crash. Reports began pouring in… pic.twitter.com/TaCbDnanBm— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) June 26, 2025
Possible fragments from the meteor were reported at a home in Henry County, in north-central Georgia, according to ABC.
The U.S. National Weather Service passed along a report from the county’s emergency management agency indicating that a resident in one home had reported a “rock” came through the home’s ceiling about 12:30 p.m. — the time the fireball hit.
#UPDATE: The meteor / fireball witnessed by countless people across multiple states has now been confirmed to have struck Earth. Officials say fragments of the meteorite crashed through the roof of a home in Henry County, Georgia. pic.twitter.com/9qrU1BCnyd
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) June 26, 2025
“We are presuming that a piece of the object fell through their roof. Henry County EMA also reported that the object broke through the roof, then the ceiling, before cracking the laminate on the floor and stopping,” a post on the Facebook page of the NWS office in Peachtree City, Georgia, states.
But that’s only one fragment of a rock estimated to have been three feet in diameter and weighing over a ton when it entered Earth’s atmosphere, according to ABC.
The disintegration of the rock created the fireball as well as an energy wave equivalent to the explosion of 20 tons of TNT, Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office, said in a statement Friday, according to ABC.
“The resulting pressure wave propagated to the ground, creating booms heard by many in that area,” Cooke’s statement said, according to ABC.
The booms were strong enough that residents in some affected areas reported them as earthquakes.
A fireball, or a bright meteorite, was seen across the southeastern United States on Thursday and later exploded over Georgia, creating booms heard by residents in the area, according to NASA.
The American Meteor Society said it received more than 160 reports of a fireball… pic.twitter.com/c7yBQjAQan
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 27, 2025
This fireball in the sky went RIGHT OVER MY SON while he was fishing today!!! WHAT IS THIS?! pic.twitter.com/s8hcR2tR9M
— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) June 26, 2025
Besides sonic booms and a spectacular, if vanishingly brief, sky show, the occurrence also provided an opportunity for Americans to brush up on their space vocabulary.
A “meteoroid” is a “small rocky or metallic object traveling through space,” ABC noted — or what the object on Thursday was before it reached Earth.
A meteoroid that enters Earth’s atmosphere and burns up is a “meteor,” according to ABC.
An object that makes it through the atmosphere and actually strikes the ground is a “meteorite.”
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