For a few seconds early Thursday, night turned into day as an extremely bright fireball lit the pre-dawn sky over much of Arizona , blinding all-sky meteor cameras as far away as western New Mexico.
Based on the latest data, a small asteroid estimated at 10 feet in diameter with a mass in the tens of tons and a kinetic energy of approximately half a kiloton - entered Earth's atmosphere above Arizona just before 4 a.m. local (MST) time. NASA estimates that the asteroid was moving at about 40,200 miles per hour (64,700 kilometers per hour).
''There are no reports of any damage or injuries - just a lot of light and few sonic booms. If Doppler data is any indication, there are almost certainly meteorites scattered on the ground north of Tucson, '' said Bill Cooke in NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment