Weather Videos Show Likely Meteor Streaking In Maryland Sky Hundreds in Maryland and Mid-Atlantic states said they saw a possible meteor bursting into a fireball, and it was caught on video. Reply (1) Hundreds said they saw what was captured on video in MD and elsewhere: a possible meteor bursting into a fireball. (Image from a YouTube video) MARYLAND — More than 300 people saw a possible meteor blazing across the Maryland sky and along the East Coast on Tuesday night (see videos below). Videos captured the possible meteor as it zipped over towns and apparently burst into a fireball around 10:57 p.m. on Tuesday. The American Meteor Society said it received 360 reports about a meteor/fireball seen over Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia. People in the D.C./Maryland region reported seeing a meteor late Tuesday night. Social media users said it looked like a bright fireball streaking across the sky. The American Meteor Society, a clearinghouse for fireball reports, listed dozens from Maryland, DC and Virginia. Reports were also received at about the same time from other parts of the country. The preliminary trajectory shows that the fireball was traveling from north to south and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in front of Bethany Beach, Delaware. Did you see last night's meteor? Tell us what you saw in comments. Reports from residents in Silver Spring, Glen Burnie, Towson, Crownsville, Annapolis, Ellicott City, Crofton, and Easton were among the many Maryland meteor sightings logged by the AMS.<doc-sep>BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Tuesday night, a camera’s motion detector was triggered by a bright ball of light flying over Brooklyn Park. It was also captured by a camera in a Prince George’s County Police police car, streaking in the same direction. Several people reported seeing a meteor flying across the sky overnight in Maryland and DC. Leon Gray shared footage from his Nest camera in Brooklyn Park around 11 p.m. Steve Chazin who lives just outside DC in McLean, Virginia also tweeted video of the meteor. Here is a better view of the #meteor using a HD version of the video. Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/MByneyLKm5 — Steve Chazin (@stevechazin) April 17, 2019 A Prince George’s County police officer also captured the meteor on dash cam. According to NASA, ” if a meteoroid comes close enough to Earth and enters Earth’s atmosphere, it vaporizes and turns into a meteor: a streak of light in the sky.” Monday night, a dashcam in D.C. caught a similar object, both meteors, but a special kind, according to Jim O’Leary with the Maryland Science Center. “When it gets really bright, say as bright as the planet Venus, which is really visible in the sky, it gets that bright or brighter, we can call it a fireball,” O’Leary said. Fireballs, like one seen in Florida last month, can happen any time. But the ones over Maryland also come as the Earth is headed to its annual rendezvous with the Lyrid meteor shower. O’Leary said it’s been going on for a long time. “It has. This is the longest known meteor shower in recorded history. First records go back to the ancient Chinese, 500 to 600 B.C. So about 2,700 years,” O’Leary said. And the source of the meteors is a very infrequent visitor- a comet called Thatcher, first recorded in 1861. Its orbit around the sun takes 415 years to complete. For most of that lengthy journey, the comet is a cold lump of ice, rock and dust. As it nears the sun, it warms and sheds debris. Every April, Earth runs into what Thatcher laid down, just as the civil war was starting. “And every year we pass through a different part of the trail,” O’Leary said. “And these little particles of ice and rock enter our atmosphere and give us this show we call a meteor shower,” It’ll run from now to April 25th, with the peak hitting the night of April 22. Have you seen it? Send your photos or videos to newsroom@wjz.com or share them on social media using #BeOnWJZ. Follow @WJZ on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook<doc-sep>The D.C. area had a bright green visitor from space late Tuesday night: A meteor that streaked south across the horizon before disappearing into the Atlantic Ocean. See video. The D.C. area had a bright green visitor from space late Tuesday night: A meteor that streaked south across the horizon before disappearing into the Atlantic Ocean. The American Meteor Society says it’s received hundreds of reports of a fireball seen over Washington, Virginia and Maryland around 11 p.m. “The preliminary 3D trajectory computed based on all the reports submitted to the AMS shows that the fireball was traveling from North to South and ended its flight in the Atlantic Ocean in front of Bethany Beach, DE,” the AMS said. “It means that if anything survived, it’s in the water.” To be even more specific, this was a bolide, according to George Mason University physics and astronomy professor Greg Redfern. “The green color was likely due to the composition of the bolide. Nickel produces a characteristic green color in meteors,” Redfern said. A fireball-caliber meteor is one that appears brighter than Venus. Multiple area residents caught the celestial spectacle on camera. According to the AMS, several thousand meteors of fireball-caliber happen in the Earth’s atmosphere every day but they often happen during daylight hours and over oceans or regions without people, so they’re not often seen. In addition to that, the brighter the fireball is, the more rare the event. And as seen in the videos, this one was pretty impressive. If you saw the fireball, you can make a report at the AMS website. The AMS has a handy graphic explaining classifications. See it below.<doc-sep>
Hide Transcript Show Transcript TRENDING. MEGAN: A METEOR IS TRENDING, AND THAT IS BECAUSE OF WHAT PEOPLE IN THE PC AND MARYLAND AREA ORDERED SEEING LAST NIGHT. IT LOOKS LIKE A BRIGHT FIREBALL STREAKING ACROSS THE SKY. A DOZEN IN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA, REPORTS W Advertisement Marylanders catch sight of meteor Share Shares Copy Link Copy A rare meteor sighting in the D.C./Maryland-area has the internet on fire. People spotted it around 11 p.m. Tuesday and pictures quickly spread on social media.The American Meteor Society, a clearinghouse for fireball reports, listed a dozen from Maryland and Virginia. Reports were also received at about the same time from other parts of the country.A couple of viewers sent us images and video of the meteor blazing through the sky. They are rare to witness, but they actually happen all the time.Impressive video of the meteor captured in Washington, D.C., and sent to 11 News by a viewer, seven seconds in, you can see the brightly lit space matter. Another viewer sent 11 News his home security footage of it from Mount Airy. The meteor is causing quite the reaction around town. "It's not something you typically see every day and its intriguing and something that should be appreciated," said Matthew Santos. "It's kind of like does it give you something to think about with alien life or something else that's out there that we just don't know much about," said David Flax. At the Maryland Science Center, you can learn all about what's going on in space, even see a real meteorite that landed in South America way back in the 1500s.The lead scientist, Jim O'Leary, said what folks saw was likely traveling about 50,000 miles per hour and just 15 miles above ground. He also says by the time it landed it had probably dissolved. "The one last night could be the size of a sugar cube or something a little bigger, but it's going so fast it burns up pretty quickly and that's what gives you the light show," said O'Leary. Meteors are often referred to as shooting stars or fireballs, but they are actually asteroids that have entered Earth's atmosphere. If you missed the meteor, don't worry, O'Leary says recommends you get ready because next Tuesday there will be a meteor shower. "Tuesday morning is the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower. It actually has about a 10-day span from April 16 to the 26th, and usually we see about 15 to 20 meteors per hour," said O'Leary. O'Leary said the best time to view Tuesday's meteor shower is at dawn, in an open field so that your view is not obstructed.Fun fact: When these objects are in space they are called asteroids. When they enter Earth's atmosphere, they are called meteors and when they hit the ground they are called meteorites.