Fireball visible from Florida is likely to be a meteor, experts say

SUNRISE, Fla. – Did you see it on Monday night? The incredible streak of light across the night sky spotted along the Atlantic coast of Florida?

Although there are still questions about where it came from, experts say it was probably a meteor.

“As far as we know, it’s definitely a meteor coming in. Now, where it’s coming from is on the agenda,” said Jason Matter, vice president of the South Florida Amateur Astronomy Association. “Some people think it might have been part of the Asteroid 2021 GW4 that passed really close to Earth, maybe a piece of it broke off and got into Earth or it might be something else we just did not see.”

Dr. Angela Colbert of the Frost Science Museum said that while there are many possibilities, a ‘meteor’ is the most likely. It could even have been a piece of spatial debris that for some reason fell and skipped the atmosphere. ‘

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Colbert, the Knight VP of Education at Frost, said we would probably never know for sure because it never hit the earth’s surface.

“It happens all the time around the world, so formal investigation can never happen,” she said. “We may never know exactly what it is.”

Matter also said meteors hit the Earth’s atmosphere so often, but what made this one so unique was how many people noticed it.

‘Usually when something comes in, it burns pretty fast. “It was seen from northern Florida to the Bahamas, so the fire lasted a long time,” Matter said.

Home surveillance cameras and webcams fixed it at 22:16

The green color that some extracts show is due to the nickel in the meteor that burned while traveling.

Why it made the big flash, Colbert said there is also an explanation for it.

“It could just be the way it hit the atmosphere that it created this big one, known as a fireball,” Colbert said. “It is called a fireball when there is a flash that is brighter than how Venus shines in the night sky.”

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