Just a couple of days after a large meteor was reported to have illuminated the night sky in Norway, here comes another report, this time, of a meteorite lighting up the North Texas sky.
It happened on Sunday evening when the said meteorite was spotted by North Texans across the sky blasting over the place as it crashed towards Earth, a Marketing News report specified.
Sharing this infrequent occurrence, Texas Storm Chasers posted on Twitter that on Sunday, around ten minutes past 9 p.m., the tweet said a meteorite was seen by many people in Oklahoma, as well as in some parts of North Texas.
According to TSC, people heard a 'boom' sound in portions of Texoma and Northeast Texas. In a video footage posted on the Facebook fan page of TSC that shows the meteor, a bright spot is seen moving towards the direction of the Earth.
More so, a loud pop is heard before the bursting of the light. This video currently reached 252 thousand views and came from a Ring doorbell in Carthage, Texas, Marketing News reports.
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Why Do Meteorites Hit the Earth?
According to Journal How, the size of a meteoroid differs a lot, and when they reach 100 meters across, they get categorized as asteroids. Thus, below that size are the common meteoroids that burns before reaching the surface of the planet.
There are times when these meteorites, upon entry, break apart into a bright terminal flash also known as a bolide. Journal How describes bolides as harmless, although the optical energy they emit as light can be in the wrath of 100,000 gigajoules. These bright terminal flashes can be as frequent as 28 times each year.
When something rapidly hits the surface, instead of moving out of the way, the soil solidifies, instead. The reason is that the entire kinetic energy is dissolving through the soil fast and producing an explosion crater.
Meteors can hit the ground with both immense strength and kinetic energy. Specifically, it can flatten a Russian forest that is 2,000 square kilometers, like what happened in 1908 during the Tunguska Impact in Siberia. Its blast is 1,000 times greater than the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima, according to the report.
The meteor left a crater, not to mention, it possibly produced firestorms caused by superheated air. On a positive note, elements from the effect may have cooled the climate of Earth.
How Frequent is Such an Occurrence?
In its report on the frequency of Meteorites, Space.com said while major effects are fairly unusual, thousands of meteorites hit the ground every year.
Nonetheless, most of these events cannot be predicted and can proceed without being noticed as they enter huge unoccupied forest or fall into the ocean, explained Bill Cooke and Althea Moorhead of the Meteoroid Environments Office of NASA.
Meteoroids are rocky residues of an asteroid or comet. However, when these objects enter the atmosphere of Earth, they are then regarded as meteors.
As indicated in the Space.com report, 90% to 95% percent of these meteors totally burn up in the atmosphere, leading to a bright flash that can be spotted across the night sky, explained Moorhead.
A report on the meteorite lighting up the North Texas Sky is shown on KETK NBC's YouTube video below:
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Check out more news and information on Meteors in Science Times.