CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – A fireball lit up the skies in northeast Ohio Tuesday morning after a seven-ton asteroid entered the atmosphere and broke up over Medina County, NASA confirmed.
The space agency said the meteor was first detected at 8:57 a.m. off Lake Erie, near Lorain. It traveled more than 34 miles through the atmosphere before breaking up and some fragments falling to the ground.
“It’s a piece of rock or metal, a fragment that floats in space, that comes into contact with our atmosphere; it’s that friction that creates that ray of light that we see,” said JonDarr Bradshaw, community engagement coordinator for the Great Lakes Science Center. “It’s very rare, because the Earth has such a thick atmosphere, for that particle, that object, to reach the ground.”
Astronomer Jay Reynolds explained that Tuesday’s experience was once in a lifetime.
“A shared experience, the sound of meteors, something from space coming in,” Reynolds said. “It’s a big deal. How often does this happen? Very rarely.”
Reynolds spoke with 19 News about what the meteorite that could be found would look like.
“What you need to look for is something in the backyard that shouldn’t be there,” Reynolds said. “Look at the rocks, look at them carefully. You’d be surprised and just say, well, what’s the problem? Yeah, it’s a meteorite.”
The pressure wave caused the ‘big boom’
The meteor, whose diameter was estimated at 6 feet, was traveling at 40,000 miles per hour. NASA said that when it broke, it unleashed a pressure wave responsible for the loud bang heard across northeast Ohio.
“That’s pretty awesome, right here in our own backyard!” Bradshaw said.
NASA said people reported seeing the fireball as far away as Ontario, Canada.
There were also witnesses in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Homes shook in Strongsville and beyond
In Strongsville, Kerry Woloszynek said the boom shook her entire house.
“It was like a boom,” he said. “It was all sudden and it shook the house.”
Kerry said the force knocked items off shelves inside his home.
“They started leaning forward and this whole thing started leaning outward,” he said. “Like I was collecting glass. What was that?”
He said his first thought was that something had hit his house.
“See if something fell on my house. Was there an explosion in the house?” he said.
Residents across the region reported similar experiences
Hope Intihar said her home also shook near the Cleveland State campus.
“I heard it, like my house was shaking. I literally felt like a car had crashed into my house. I was scared,” Intihar said. “I thought my dog liked having knocked over a trash can or something heavy.”
He said he looked out the window after finding nothing inside to explain the shaking.
Meteorologist Jeff Tanchak said the meteor would have been visible to the naked eye if the sky had been clear.
Meteorologist Kelly Dobeck noted that once a meteor hits Earth, it is classified as a meteorite.
No injuries have been reported.
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