600 fireball sightings hovering overhead reported from several states

Just as the sun set in the Midwest Sunday night, a fireball tore the sky. What turned out to be a meteor was spotted by hundreds – some of them even grabbed it on video.

Since Sunday, more than 600 reports have been filed with the American Meteor Society of nine different states regarding the fireball. The event occurred around 8:40 pm. CDT in Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan and other neighboring states.

Many who saw it and submitted reports or commented on the site said that they were able to see the fireball at the naked eye. for as long as 10 seconds. A woman who filed a report to the AMS said that there was a strong boom after the passing of the fireball. She also shared a video of the fireball that she caught on her home security camera.

A map of the observations showed where each report and the details of the observation came from. The reports included details of the color that the fireball seemed to have and the white trail it left in its wake.

The meteor probably entered the atmosphere at a perfect angle, which allowed it to be easily spotted Cooke from the Meteoroid Environment Office of NASA, according to the Illinois Daily Herald . Its low angle meant that it was traveling horizontally for a longer period of time than a meteor that was moving at a steeper angle.

Meteors are not so rare. They occur when a meteoroid of space enters the atmosphere of the Earth and begins to burn. Meteorites are small pieces of comets or asteroids that rotate in space and can sometimes become fragmented when they are struck by another object.

Small particles pass through the Earth's atmosphere every day, but they usually burn before being spotted. It is quite rare for large meteors to reach the surface of the Earth in the form of meteorites. NASA, however, has a comprehensive plan to protect the planet against any object of this type, called National Land Preparation Strategy and Action Plan. There are currently no menacing objects on a crash course with Earth that NASA has concerns about.

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In this 30 second exposure, a meteor trail through the sky during the annual Perseid meteorite rain on August 13, 2015, at Spruce Knob, West Virginia. A fireball was seen during the weekend in nine states. Bill Ingalls / NASA