Giant fireball lights up skies across America, Louisiana among witnesses

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Millions saw a fireball in the sky early Friday morning. You missed it if you weren’t looking up at the right time or didn’t have a camera on record.

Luckily for those of us sleeping, many security and doorbell cameras could catch the celestial sight.

According to the American Meteor Society, there were sightings from California to Florida. Several sightings were reported in Louisiana around Lake Charles, Houma, Metairie, and New Orleans.

A meteoroid is a rocky or metallic fragment of an asteroid, comet or planet. It then becomes a meteor when it enters Earth’s atmosphere. It heats up as it approaches Earth at a high rate of speed. The heat becomes so intense that it eventually burns up, which causes the bright light.

A meteor can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as an asteroid. An extra-bright meteor is referred to as a fireball. Thousands of fireballs enter Earth’s atmosphere every day and not all are associated with meteor showers.

When a meteor can survive Earth’s atmosphere and land on the surface, it is called a meteorite. Significant meteorites are rare. According to NASA, a meteorite that landed in Russia in 2013 was the last significant meteorite in 100 years.

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