Event: 20240221-234856

Over two hundred eyewitnesses in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Virginia and the province of Ontario have reported sighting a fireball on February 21 at 6:49 PM Eastern Standard Time. The event was also captured by 2 cameras belonging to the NASA Fireball Network, 1 camera belonging to the Southern Ontario Meteor Network and a few other publicly accessible cameras in the region. Analysis of the data shows that most of the region was covered by cloud, which prevented detection when the object started to ablate. It did become visible at an altitude of 38 miles above the Pennsylvania town of Syndersburg, moving east-northeast at 30,400 miles per hour. The tiny piece of an asteroid causing the fireball disintegrated 23 miles above wooded terrain just north of Hallton. The clouds and haze do not allow for an accurate estimate of the fireballs brightness nor of the mass of the object producing it. We thank the American Meteor Society for providing the eyewitness reports.

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

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Event Data