Nearly one hundred eyewitnesses in the upper MidWest (mainly in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) reported seeing a fireball on 2019 December 3 at 6:16 PM Central Standard Time (2019 December 4 00:16 UTC). Their reports were combined with data from a NASA all sky meteor camera system (located at Oberlin College) and a car dash cam to derive the meteor's trajectory, which began at an altitude of 53 miles above Aretz airport, northeast of Lafayette, Indiana. During 4 seconds of atmospheric flight, the meteor moved to the north-northeast at 29,100 miles per hour, traversing 32 miles before disintegrating 30 miles above the town of Royal Center. The Oberlin camera puts the fireball peak brightness at that of a quarter Moon, indicating that the object producing the meteor was about half a foot in diameter, weighing approximately 10 pounds.
Event ID | 20191204-001600 |
Date (UTC) | Dec. 4, 2019 |
Time (UTC) | 00:16:00 |
AMS Event | 6135-2019 |
Magnitude | -9.0 |
Size | 0.15 m |
Chicken Little Start Lat/Lon | +40.465, -86.807 |
Chicken Little End Lat/Lon | +40.875, -86.524 |
Chicken Little Altitude | 84.6 km → 48.5 km ( 52.6 miles→ 30.1 miles) |
Chicken Little Speed | 12.7 km/s (28,400 mph) |