Event: 20230904-012256

Hundreds of eyewitnesses in the mid-Atlantic states have filed reports of a bright meteor observed at 9:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time on September 3 (4 September 2023 at 1:23 UTC). The event was also captured by several publicly accessible cameras in the region and at extreme range by a few NASA Fireball Network and Southern Ontario Meteor Network cameras. Analysis of all the available data indicates that the fireball became visible 47 miles above the Maryland town of Forest Hill, moving to the northwest at 36,000 miles per hour. It disintegrated at an altitude of 22 miles above Gnatstown in Pennsylvania, traveling just over 55 miles through the atmosphere. An orbit calculated from the trajectory shows that the object producing the meteor was a small fragment of an asteroid, probably originating in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Infrasound detectors in the region show a weak signal from this event, allowing us to estimate the energy produced when the asteroid fragment disintegrated at roughly 1 ton of TNT. The break up generated pressure waves which propagated to the ground, causing booms and noises heard by some eyewitnesses. The infrasound data indicates the size of the object is about a foot in diameter, with a weight of 60 pounds.

---

Images and Video from NASA and Western University's Southern Ontario Meteor Network

---

Event Data