NASA Releases Footage of Meteor Buzzing Georgia

A couple of weeks ago, residents of southern Georgia saw a bright object streaking across the evening sky. Speculation followed in the wake of the vapor trail. Was it aliens? Was it a weapon? Was it a Star Wars advertisement? NASA answered those questions when it announced the object had been a piece of a nearby asteroid that had fallen off into Earth’s atmosphere. Specifically, this heavenly object had weighed around 150 pounds, been roughly 16 inches in diameter, and traveled at 29,000 mile per hour, entering the atmosphere at a steep angle and a southern direction.

Nothing if not thorough, the Marshall Center has now released footage captured by one of its six All Sky Cameras, which continuously scan the atmosphere for meteors and other objects.

A meteor blasting through the atmosphere is nothing new — 25 million of them do so every year, creating over a million kilograms of dust that accumulates on the surface of the planet.

Still, it’s uncommon to actually see something like this scorching through the night sky, and even rarer to get sweet video footage like this. NASA says whole fragments of the asteroid may have potentially made it to the ground, though there haven’t been any reports of anyone finding such pieces yet. If you think you’ve found a meteorite, here’s a few places you can contact to get it authenticated.