Meteor pulls on the east coast, many sightings in New Jersey

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) – Have you seen the shooting star that lit up the sky Tuesday night?

If that's the case, what you've actually seen is a dust the size of a golf ball that has been floating in space for billions of years.

In a video obtained by Action News, Twitter's user control camera, Steve Chazin, captured what appears to be the meteor crossing the sky late Tuesday night.

Chazin told Action News that this had been done while he was walking along Route 50 in Fairfax, Virginia.

At about the same time, Action News received similar information about possible meteor observations in New Jersey.

Sean Finnegan caught him on his doorstep in Egg Harbor Township.

"It was amazing! It was brighter than the moon," he said.

"What we saw in the video is what we call a sporadic fireball," said Derrick Pitts, the Franklin Institute's chief astronomer.

Pitts explains that meteors are particles of comet dust that enter the atmosphere.

"This is only a piece of space rock that enters the Earth's atmosphere, when it comes in and warms up, it shines, we can see a beautiful sequence, and then disappear, typically," he said. said Pitts.

The meteor we saw on Tuesday night probably broke into small pieces, without creating a crater on the earth. But, it was much bigger than we usually see, which measure the size of a small pebble. This meteor was probably the size of a golf ball.

If you missed the meteor, do not worry! There are meteor showers in our night sky by April 26th.

The best night to watch shooting stars will be from Monday to Tuesday morning.