Massive Fireball Over Southeastern US Triggers Earthquake-Like Boom—Confirmed as Meteor

It seems like Fourth of July fireworks started a little earlier than usual for people across the southeastern U.S. this week, as many spotted a fireball streaking across the sky on Thursday.

The American Meteor Society, a nonprofit scientific organization, reported that it received over 200 reports of fireball sightings in six states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Dashcam footage accompanied some of the reports.

The National Weather Service in Peachtree City posted on its Facebook page that many people reported seeing a "meteor or space junk" just before 12:30 p.m. on Thursday in northern Georgia.

"Numerous reports of an earthquake came in shortly after, followed by sightings and video of a flash across the sky seen as far away as Macon and upstate South Carolina. That 'earthquake' was actually a sonic boom from the meteor or space junk," according to the office. A citizen in Henry County also reported that a "rock," presumably part of the meteor, went through their ceiling and shared photos of the damage on Facebook.

When a space rock enters the atmosphere on its own and burns up, it's called a meteor. It's a meteorite if it survives the trip and makes contact with the ground before burning up. Those that appear especially bright are called fireballs, according to NASA.

The meteor was first seen at an altitude of 48 miles above the town of Oxford, Georgia, moving southwest at 30,000 miles per hour, Bill Cooke, a lead at NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, told CBS News. The fireball later exploded 27 miles above West Forest, Georgia, unleashing an energy of about 20 tons of TNT. Cooke said the fireball was 3 feet in diameter and weighed more than a ton. "The resulting pressure wave propagated to the ground, creating booms heard by many in that area," he told the news outlet.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shared on X that there had been reports of a fireball streaking across the southeastern U.S., adding that the Geostationary Lightning Mapper on the agency's satellites can occasionally detect these bright meteors, known as bolides, when they pass through the atmosphere.