Floridians used social media to share incredible videos of a flash of light illuminating the night sky when an asteroid passed over Earth.
A meteor fragment was spotted Monday night in the Earth’s atmosphere above Florida, prompting many people to share strips of the event on Twitter.
Meteorologists shared several shots filmed by Florida residents, with numerous cuts causing the space rock to shoot across the sky before burning up around 10:20 p.m.
WTSP-TV meteorologist Grant Gilmore posted on Twitter: “A large fireball (bright meteor) illuminated the skies over Florida and the Bahamas last night. That was the view from Lakeland. ‘
He also said that the meteor was visible to the GOES-16 Geostationary Lightning Mapper and that it had burned up on the Atlantic coast of the Sunshine States.
A large fireball (bright meteor) illuminated the skies over Florida and the Bahamas last night. It was the view from Lakeland! 📸 📸: Joseph Gresham pic.twitter.com/rKkmZrvLxR
– Grant Gilmore WTSP (@GrantWTSP) 13 April 2021
The fireball was seen near the same time as the small asteroid 2021 GW4 would pass the earth. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the asteroid was first spotted on April 8.
According to NASA statistics, the space rock is between 3.5 and 7.7 meters wide. The size of GW4 is relatively small compared to other asteroids, which can be hundreds of kilometers large.
It traveled 18,700 miles per hour as it passed the earth, estimated to be nine times faster than a rifle bullet.
At its closest point, 2021 GW4 has passed the earth at just 7 percent of the distance between our planet and the moon. It was much closer to us than some geostationary satellites orbiting about 22,000 miles.
CBS News meteorologist Zach Covey said the ‘flash of light’ was like a piece of an asteroid known as the 2021 GW4. ‘
BREAK | The flash of light observed not long ago in South Florida was like a piece of asteroid known as the 2021 GW4.
The plan was to take an extremely close approach of only 16,000 miles. The asteroid is as big as a car, about 14 feet. @ CBS12 https://t.co/roXF6snxep
– Zach Covey (@ZachCoveyTV) 13 April 2021
He continued: “It was scheduled to take an extremely close approach of only 16,000 miles.”
Covey added in a separate tweet: “ICYMI (in case you missed it) We can confirm that according to the closest approximation data, asteroid 2021 GW4 made its closest approximation of 9,300 miles, much closer than the expected 1600 mile approx. “Fireball. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.”
NASA defines asteroids as “rocky, airless remnants that remained about 4.6 billion years ago from the early formation of our solar system.”
It added: ‘When high-speed meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere (or that of another planet like Mars) and burn up, the fireballs or’ stars’ are called meteors.
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