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A few days ago, a house doorbell closed circuit (CC) TV camera caught a fireball flying through the skies of North Carolina at high speed.
According to local media reports such as US Newsweek, the shooting star in the CCTV video crossed the sky near Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital, around 7:40 pm local time on the 24th.
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On the same day, the American Meteor Society (AMS) shared the video, saying that more than 80 people in North Carolina had reported seeing meteors. In the video, the night sky brightens for a moment as a meteor passes quickly.
In response, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said the meteor was one of five meteors discovered that night across the United States.
On the same day, NASA’s Meteor Observatory posted on its official Facebook page, “As a result of analyzing the records, the meteor captured by the doorbell CCTV passed the North Carolina coast and sailed at 32,000 miles per hour at 48 miles (about 77 km) off the coast of Camp Rejun. It was found that it was moving northeast at a speed of (about 51,500 km).” This means that the meteor traversed the sky at a speed of about Mach 42, which is 42 times the speed of sound.
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The meteor observatory also explained in this report, “This meteor moved 28 miles (about 45 kilometers) in the upper atmosphere of the Earth, and then shattered about 26 miles (about 41.8 kilometers) above the city of Morehead.”
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Across the United States, 148 people reported seeing the shooting stars, the majority of whom were from North Carolina. There were also reports of meteors seen in Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
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Fortunately, no injuries or damage from the meteor were reported. The video has been viewed more than 240,000 times since its release on the 24th.
Meteors are small pieces of asteroids or comets that have entered Earth’s atmosphere and are usually burned by frictional heat, also called fireballs. If a meteor hits the surface, it becomes a meteorite, which is worth hundreds of millions to several billion won, making it a target for meteorite hunters.
Meanwhile, NASA has released a new map showing where meteors struck Earth’s atmosphere from 1988 until recently.
Photo = American Meteorological Society
By Yoon Tae-hee, staff reporter th20022@seoul.co.kr
