Event: 20240830-051500

Over 100 eyewitnesses in the states of Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama have filed reports on the American Meteor Society Website of a bright fireball seen at 1:15 AM on August 30. The fireball was also detected by several cameras in the region, as well as the Geostationary Lightning Mapper aboard the GOES-16 spacecraft. An analysis of the available data indicates that the fireball was first seen at an altitude of 45 miles above Piney Flats, Tennessee, moving east of south at 31,300 miles per hour. The object – an asteroidal fragment weighing nearly 1000 pounds and just over 2 feet in diameter – managed to make it to an altitude of 20 miles above the North Carolina town of Altapass before disintegrating. The breakup produced an energy of 10 tons on TNT, which generated a pressure wave that propagated to the ground, causing the booms heard by many of the eyewitnesses.
It is likely there are meteorites on the ground in the Spruce Pines, Ingalls, Altapass area.
We thank the American Meteor Society for providing the eyewitness accounts.

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Event Data