A meteor flew over Maine, along with other Northeastern states, on Dec. 26! You need to see the ‘once in a lifetime’ celestial event that spontaneously lit up the New England sky!
New Englanders got a special surprise in the night sky on Dec. 26 — and no, it wasn’t an early New Year’s celebration. The American Meteor Society, a nonprofit scientific group made up of astronomers, confirmed a meteor could be spotted over parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania at around 6 p.m. EST. But if you live elsewhere or just happened to miss the fireball light up the night, you can see the meteor for yourself in the videos and pics below!
While objects flying over Earth are pretty common, they’re usually short-lived, making them feel rare to people who happen to witness one. “Events like this do happen a few times a week in the U.S., but for an individual person, it is usually a once in a lifetime thing,” Mike Hankey, an operations manager at the American Meteor Society, told TIME. “Since the events only last about three seconds, you have to be in the right place at the right time to see it.”
While most meteors are the size of a grain of sand when they are part of a meteor shower, Hankey said this one is estimated to be roughly between the size of a softball and a basketball. It also did not appear to be part of a larger meteor shower, and Hankey said it was more of a “random event.” While it may have been a singular event, the fireball is obviously still a big deal to whoever happened to witness it — and apparently that’s a ton of people. The American Meteor Society received more than 180 reports from witnesses about the bright light, which means that there were plenty of social media users were able to snap a few pics and videos to share with the rest of us who weren’t looking up last night!
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NEW IMAGE: we've been showing you the view of the #meteor or #fireball from #Maine on air, but here's a new one from Michael McCormack who has a webcam in Portsmouth, NH
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Saw a good size meteor tonight at http://portsmouthwebcam.com and we also saw it simultaneously at another of our installations at http://Agamenticus.org !
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