Meteor — described as ‘Biggest ball of fire’ by shocked witnesses — lights up sky over Tennessee, NASA says

A meteor that lit up a southeastern Tennessee sky on Thursday in what one witness called the “biggest ball of fire” they’d ever seen was a piece of an asteroid vaporizing above Earth, NASA said. 

The fireball was first spotted above Robbinsville, North Carolina around 7:45 p.m., traveling around 47,000 miles per hour in Earth’s atmosphere, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.  

The cosmic debris then traveled around 120 miles toward East Ridge, Tennessee in under 10 seconds, where it disintegrated 25 miles above the Earth’s surface. 

Witnesses on Reddit said the fireball streaked across the sky, glowing blue, white and orangish yellow, with one saying it was the “biggest ball of fire” they’d seen, the outlet reported. 

Another witness in Chattanooga said they heard a sound like a lighter’s “poof” in the sky as the chunk of rock screeched overhead, which left behind “the most insane tail.” 

For all of the dramatic light and sound it caused, the fireball ended up being a small two-inch fragment of an asteroid that weighed less than half a pound, NASA confirmed Friday.

NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network captured the asteroid from multiple directions using a series of black-and-white video cameras equipped with a fisheye lens, according to the local paper. 

The agency was able to calculate the fireball’s height and speed using the camera setup. 

Officials from the agency said that the fireball was not a part of the Taurid meteor shower, which is typically active throughout November and brings bright meteors with it.