Community Corner

Did You See a Meteor in the Baltimore Area?

Reports came in from Florida to New England of meteor sightings Friday night.

Some Baltimore area residents, along with people all along the East Coast have reported seeing a meteor Friday evening.

On Lutherville-Timonium Patch Facebook page, two readers described what they saw.

"I saw it when I was driving on Ashland Rd in Cockeysville just before 8pm tonight. It was neon green with an orange fiery tail," wrote Tina Hanlon, also on the Hunt Valley-Cockeysville page.

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And Peggy Madden Norris wrote: "Timonium--bright streak across the sky!"

"Saw a huge ball of intensely bright greenish blue light streak across heading about due East ...," Peggy Peters wrote on Hunt Valley-Cockeysville Patch. Read more of her description.

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"Holy crap just saw a huuuuge green meteor burn up over DC. Craziest thing I've ever seen. Anyone else see that?" tweeted @brentlaverty just after 8 p.m.

"Very impressive," Nanette Bonsby wrote on Ellicott City's Facebook page. It was bright green, red, yellow and white, streaming through the sky."

On Twitter, @Mickey_Baker wrote: "Ok I just saw a meteor burning through the sky in Ellicott City. It was really cool. Tim saw too I'm not crazy."

"It was about 755 tonight," Tressa Ellis wrote on Elkridge Patch's Facebook page. "Pretty large. Very colorful as it streaked across the sky. It lasted a few seconds."

More to explore

The event has been logged by hundreds of visitors on the American Meteor Society's fireball reports page, with reports coming in from as close as West Friendship, Ellicott City, and Clarksville, and as far away as Yarker, Ontario.

Fireballs are particularly bright meteors - they shine brighter than Venus, according to Case Western University’s astronomy department.

NASA's new Fireball and Bolide website defines fireballs and bolides as “exceptionally bright meteors that are spectacular enough to be seen over a very wide area.”

(The term "bolide" is also used to describe objects that crash into the Earth's surface and the sonic boom caused by large, fast-moving fireballs.)

“Fireballs that explode in the atmosphere are technically referred to as bolides although the terms fireballs and bolides are often used interchangeably," the site says. 

February's fireball in Russia is currently the only entry in NASA's database.

Did you see something in the sky Friday night? Tell us in the comments!

Patch Local Editor Janet Metzner contributed to this report.


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