At-home footage in Walker, Louisiana, captured the moment a bright fireball streaked across the night sky on March 2.
CHICKASAW, La. – Some 50 miles above northeastern Louisiana, a fireball blazed across the sky on the night of March 2, capturing the attention of skywatchers across several states in the South.
The meteor traveled west across at 30,000 miles per hour for more than 41 miles before disintegrating above the Georgia Pacific Wildlife Management Area in Louisiana at an altitude of 27 miles.
Eyewitnesses in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas have filed reports on the American Meteor Society since the fireball blazed across the sky on Monday night.
The blue arrow indicates the trajectory of the fireball that streaked west across northeastern Louisiana on March 2.
(NASA)
Security camera footage in Walker, Louisiana, situated on a driveway, captured the astonishing moment the fireball streaked across the night sky, casting an eye-grabbing glow.
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A fireball is an astronomical term for extremely bright meteors that can be observed across a wide area, like the one that streaked across the Louisiana sky.
At-home footage in Walker, Louisiana, captured the moment a bright fireball streaked across the night sky on March 2, visible in the top right of this still.
(Joelle LeJeune Sibley / Facebook / FOX Weather)
Fireballs typically reach a visual magnitude of -3 or brighter when seen directly above the observer. Magnitude -5 is equivalent to the planet Venus at its brightest.
At this magnitude, a fireball can cast a very faint shadow under the darkest conditions, according to the International Meteor Organization.
Meteors, or “shooting stars,” are the visible paths of meteoroids that have entered the Earth’s atmosphere at high velocities, according to NASA.
According to NASA, this meteor was not associated with any currently active meteor shower and was part of the sporadic “background” meteor complex.
