Bright Fireball over the East Coast

Over 190 reports from 7 states

The AMS has received over 190 reports so far about of a bright fireball seen above the Northern East Coast area on January 9^th, 2019 around 6:35am EST (11:35 Universal Time). The event was seen from New York state to North Carolina. We also received reports from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

If you witnessed this event and/or if you have a video or a photo of this event, please

Submit an Official Fireball Report

If you want to learn more about Fireballs: read our Fireball FAQ.

AMS Event #31-2019 – Witness location and estimated ground trajectory

Trajectory

The preliminary 3D trajectory computed based on all the reports submitted to the AMS shows that the fireball was traveling from North-East to South-West and ended its flight somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean North East of Norfolk, VA.

AMS Event #31-2019 – Estimated 3D trajectory

Video

Twitter user, Jeremy Settle (Assistant News Director @News12NJ) shared this video of the event from West New York, NJ

Fireball?

Based on our first analysis, it looks like the event was a fireball. A fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus as seen in the morning or evening sky.

Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.

Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event. As a general thumb rule, there are only about 1/3 as many fireballs present for each successively brighter magnitude class, following an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about 1 fireball of magnitude -6 or better for every 200 hours of meteor observing, while a fireball of magnitude -4 can be expected about once every 20 hours or so.

So, if you saw this one: congrats, it’s a nice way start the year!

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