A unique phenomenon occurs at the turn of the year in the United States. A meteor speeding toward Earth explodes over the skies of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 1.
By 11.30 am local time, Pittsburgh residents said they heard a loud explosion outside. Several residents reported that they saw windows and objects in the house vibrate during the explosion.
The sound of the explosion made residents confused, because there were no records of seismic, lightning, or lightning activities that day. But NASA's GOES-16 weather satellite detected strong signs of the meteor which was later verified.
The explosion turned out to be a bolide, the term for a large meteor that exploded in the atmosphere. According to NASA Meteor Watch, the explosion was equivalent to an explosion of 30 tons of TNT.
"If it wasn't cloudy, the fireball could probably be easily seen in the daytime sky," NASA said in a Facebook post, as quoted by Cnet.
"A rough estimate indicates its brightness is about 100 times brighter than the full moon."
NASA said sensors on the ground detected the blast wave from the meteor as it exploded in the atmosphere. The meteor is estimated to have a length of about one meter, a weight of 4,500 kg, and a speed of about 72,420 km/hour.
With an explosive force of only about 30 tons of TNT, this bolide is quite small when compared to the meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013. The bolide emitted an explosion equivalent to 440,000 tons of TNT.
Because the size of the bolide is quite small, it is unlikely that any part of the meteor will survive and land on the Earth's surface. The entire meteor is probably already burning up in the atmosphere.
