Event: 20180717-020513


Several eyewitnesses in the central Florida region reported seeing a bright fireball, which was also detected by two NASA all sky meteor cameras at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and KSC. The data from these camera show that the object - which was a fragment of an asteroid about 2 inches in diameter - first began to ablate 56 miles above Polk City, Florida. It moved north of west for some 41 miles at 56,000 miles per hour before completely burning up above the swamp south of Brooksville. At its brightest, the fireball was about 3 times more luminous than the planet Venus; no meteorites are believed to be produced by this event, as it was still moving fast (31,000 miles per hour) at its terminal altitude.


NASA Images and Videos


Meteoroid Orbit


Event Data

Event ID 20180717-020513
Date (UTC) July 17, 2018
Time (UTC) 02:05:13
AMS Event 2427-2018
Size 2 inches
Origin Asteroidal
NASA Camera Start Lat/Lon +28.157, -81.710
NASA Camera End Lat/Lon +28.379, -82.351
NASA Camera Altitude 90.0 km → 38.3 km ( 55.9 miles→ 23.8 miles)
NASA Camera Speed 25.1 km/s (56,100 mph)
Chicken Little Start Lat/Lon +28.321, -81.701
Chicken Little End Lat/Lon +28.400, -82.326
Chicken Little Altitude 71.3 km → 52.2 km ( 44.3 miles→ 32.4 miles)
Chicken Little Speed 18.7 km/s (41,800 mph)