A meteor flared over the US states of Michigan and Illinois on Tuesday, January 16, exploding with enough force to register as the equivalent of a 2.0 magnitude earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed.
Social media users rushed to share their accounts of seeing and hearing the fireball which appeared at around 8.10 pm. Bob Trembly with the Warren Astronomical Society told Fox 2 it was a classic “bolide,” a meteor that explodes in the atmosphere.
“That is a fireball that has a bright flash and it explodes,” he said. “What you are seeing there is when a meteor hits the atmosphere it causes the air to ionize and turns it into plasma and that is the bright light you see from a meteor. Well if they are large enough they get a little deeper into the atmosphere and they can explode like you saw.”
This security camera footage shows the meteor streaking through the sky over Troy, Michigan. Credit: YouTube/Matt Ervin/Woodside Bible Church via Storyful
