Event: 20201114-015021

There are numerous reports of a bright fireball seen over the northern MidWest at 8:50 PM Eastern Standard Time on November 13, 2020. The meteor was also detected by 4 all sky meteor cameras in the region, enabling the establishment of the object's trajectory and orbit. A tiny fragment of an asteroid moving at 36,000 miles per hour began burning up 46 miles above a point just west of Canfield, Ohio. Traveling to the southeast, it descended at a relatively steep 45 degree angle, disintegrating at an altitude of 19 miles above Calcutta, near the Pennsylvania border. At this point the fireball had slowed to 20,000 miles per hour or 5.6 miles per second - quite slow for a meteor. The orbit of this object is inclined 20 degrees with respect to that of the Earth, and has an aphelion just inside the orbit of Mars. This meteor is not part of the Taurid meteor shower - it was coming from the wrong direction and moving too slowly.

---

NASA Images and Videos

---

Meteoroid Orbit

---

Event Data