--- title: "NASA Puzzled by Five Fireballs Over America in One Night" description: "NASA's Meteor Watch made sightings of at least five fireballs soaring through the sky over the US last Friday night at 32,000 mph." date: "2021-09-30" modified: "2021-09-30" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-puzzled-fireballs-america" categories: - "NASA" - "Science & Energy" - "Space" tags: - "fireball" - "meteors" - "NASA" - "the digest" --- # NASA Puzzled by Five Fireballs Over America in One Night ![NASA's Meteor Watch made sightings of at least five fireballs soaring through the sky over the US last Friday night at 32,000 mph.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Fireball Alert NASA's Meteor Watch confirmed sightings of at least five fireballs soaring through the evening sky over the US last Friday night. In a [Facebook post](), the Meteor Watch noted that there were at least 80 eyewitness accounts of a massive fireball soaring over the North Carolina coast, becoming visible at around 7:40 pm. The giant space rock eventually disintegrated after covering 26 miles through the upper atmosphere at an estimated 32,000 mph. It's unclear from the Facebook post whether a single meteor broke up to form multiple smaller fireballs during its descent, or if multiple fireballs blazed through the upper atmosphere — a spectacular sight nonetheless for those lucky enough to be staring at the night sky at the right time. ## Burning Up The fireballs' trajectories remain ambiguous. "There is more than the usual amount of uncertainty in the trajectory solution due to all the observers being located to the west of the fireball,” reads NASA's post. There were [up to 150 reports]() of the fireballs across Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virgina. A video linked by Meteor Watch shows one of the massive fireballs burning bright in the distant sky. [Several other videos]() were shared by the American Meteor Society as well. https://youtu.be/283yq227FEU ## Burn so Bright Fireballs are "exceptionally bright" meteors, burning brighter than the planet Venus in the night sky, [according to the American Meteor Society](). "Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day," the American Meteor Society's [FAQ]() on fireballs reads. "The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight." **READ MORE:** [NASA reports multiple fireballs hurtling through the sky over US]() \[*The Hill*\] ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()