Community Corner

Did You See a Meteor Over Howard County?

Reports came in from Florida to New England of meteor sightings Friday night.

Plenty of Howard County residents, along with people all along the East Coast reported seeing a meteor Friday evening.

"Very impressive," Nanette Bonsby wrote on Ellicott City's Facebook page. It was bright green, red, yellow and white, streaming through the sky."

On Twitter, @Mickey_Baker wrote: "Ok I just saw a meteor burning through the sky in Ellicott City. It was really cool. Tim saw too I'm not crazy."

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"It was about 755 tonight," Tressa Ellis wrote on Elkridge Patch's Facebook page. "Pretty large. Very colorful as it streaked across the sky. It lasted a few seconds."

The event has been logged by hundreds of visitors on the American Meteor Society's fireball reports page, with reports coming in from as close as West Friendship, Ellicott City, and Clarksville, and as far away as Yarker, Ontario.

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Fireballs are particularly bright meteors - they shine brighter than Venus, according to Case Western University’s astronomy department.

NASA's new Fireball and Bolide website defines fireballs and bolides as “exceptionally bright meteors that are spectacular enough to be seen over a very wide area.”

(The term "bolide" is also used to describe objects that crash into the Earth's surface and the sonic boom caused by large, fast-moving fireballs.)

“Fireballs that explode in the atmosphere are technically referred to as bolides although the terms fireballs and bolides are often used interchangeably," the site says. 

February's fireball in Russia is the only entry in NASA's database as of Friday night. 

This article has been updated

Did you see something in the sky Friday night? Tell us in the comments!


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