Fireball illuminates the sky over Pennsylvania and other eastern states

Hundreds of people in southern Pennsylvania and eight other states on Tuesday spotted a bright green fireball in the night sky.

According to the American Meteor Society, the fireball ran from north to south at 22:57. and completed his flight in the Atlantic Ocean to the east of Bethany Beach, Delaware.

The AMS defines a fireball as "a meteor brighter than any planet or star, that is, brighter than the magnitude -4".

"It was really bright and very close," an observer from Willow Street described the fireball in one of more than 400 reports that were filed with the AMS.

A report from New Holland, noted, "How beautiful it is! I had a big open sky for the fireball to show his tricks in front of me. "

In addition to Pennsylvania, the fireball has been reported in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C. and West Virginia.

"Several thousand meteors the size of a fireball occur in the Earth 's atmosphere each day," AMS explained. "However, the vast majority of them occur over oceans and uninhabited areas and many of them are masked by the light of day. Those that occur at night are also unlikely to be detected because of the relatively small number of people wanting to notice them.

"In addition, the brighter the fireball is, the more rare the event is. As a general rule, only about one-third of the number of fireballs present for each class of greater magnitude is brilliant after an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about 1 fireball of magnitude -6 or better every 200 hours of meteor observation, while a fireball of magnitude -4 is expected about every 20 hours. "

Another fireball was sighted in Germany shortly before midnight Tuesday. He was traveling from south-west to north-west, finishing his flight over Hamburg.