Fireball! Meteor spotted over parts of Kentucky on Thursday night

Did you see a fireball in the sky last night? Don’t worry; you’re not insane (or, at least, not because of this). A very bright meteor streaked its way across parts of Ohio and Kentucky around 9:40 p.m. ET on Thursday, with some reports coming from as far as Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia.

The most sightings came in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. A Reddit user who attended the Green Day concert at Great American Ballpark said the entire crowd gasped as the fireball made its way from Ohio to Kentucky. There were over 200 reports of a fireball sighting on the American Meteor Society website and pictures and videos are all over social media.

A spectacular fireball lit up the skies over Kentucky on Thursday night, leaving hundreds of onlookers in awe.☄️ pic.twitter.com/GuYEyuyqZm

— AccuWeather (@accuweather) August 23, 2024

Last night's spectacular fireball #meteor, seen over most of the Ohio Valley and Mid-South, could have fragments that landed in Kentucky. Did you see it around 9:40 pm ET? pic.twitter.com/7VEWBwSUvr

— Brad Panovich (@wxbrad) August 23, 2024

Wes Ryle, an astronomer for the Cincinnati Observatory, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that fireballs are pretty common; this one just happened to fly over a highly-populated area early in the night.

“It’s usually referred to as a fireball, which is just an extremely bright meteor,” Ryle said. “And, of course, meteors are when a small object, basically a piece of rocky material, encounters the earth’s atmosphere, and when it’s traveling at really, really, really high speeds, that causes it to heat up the air around it and glow as it comes down through the atmosphere. In this case, it even looks like it broke up a little bit as it came down, which resulted in a flashing appearance as it came down through the atmosphere.”

What a week for the sky. On Monday night, we got a rare blue supermoon, now, a fireball. I’d ask what’s next but I’m a little afraid to find out.