A brilliant green fireball lit up the night sky over 15 states on Sunday, including Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Texas. Numerous residents in those states caught the bright light on camera.
The fireball was observed on Sunday shortly after 10:30 p.m. Central Time, according to the American Meteor Society, which received nearly 400 reports. Reports were also received from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Minnesota, and Oklahoma.
Experts believe that a meteor rather than just space junk entering the atmosphere caused the green fireball.
“It was SUPER BRIGHT and lit up the whole sky,” one witness in Oakland, Tennessee, told the American Meteor Society.
According to some witnesses, the object seemed to disintegrate before going out of sight. Researchers are examining the path of the fireball, eyewitness reports, security camera footage, and other observations to determine whether any fragments may have made contact with the ground after surviving entry.
Another witness in Arlington, Tennessee, reported, “I ain’t never seen anything like it. The colors were pretty and crazy.”
Another fireball illuminated the sky over Australia on Sunday
Meanwhile, as all of that was happening in the United States, observers spotted another fireball over the Australian capital of Melbourne.
Swinburne University of Technology astrophysicist Dr. Kirsten Banks told nine.com.au the light was “definitely a meteor” due to its brightness and speed.
“The green particularly in the photo tells me that it’s a bright meteor known as a fireball,” Banks said. “They often leave a bright-green glow behind them caused by the oxygen atoms in the air interacting with the fireball as it plunges through the atmosphere.”