Watch This ‘Celestial Visitor’ Turn Into a Massive Fireball Over Pennsylvania

That was more than a regular old shooting star — that was a meteor that illuminated the whole sky.
A giant space rock fired up the firmament Tuesday night near Pittsburgh, and NASA caught the whole thing on camera.

Using a network of 15 specialized cameras around the country, NASA tracks fireball events throughout the U.S.

NASA estimated the size of Tuesday’s meteor to be roughly 500 pounds and said the rock blew up as it traveled some 45,000 miles per hour through the atmosphere.

For a meteor’s-eye-view of the event, check out NASA’s Facebook post below:

“This celestial visitor had an orbit that took it out to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter,” read part of NASA’s Facebook post on the meteor. “[I]t came a mightly long way to a fiery end in the predawn Pennsylvania sky.”

The massive rock broke up into tiny fragments in the atmosphere, but NASA said some of those fragments may be near Kittaning, Pennsylvania.

Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/skv_g5x8o68/watch-this-celestial-visitor-turn-into.html

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Watch This ‘Celestial Visitor’ Turn Into a Massive Fireball Over Pennsylvania