By Joshua Huff, sports editor
BIRMINGHAM – The National Weather Service of Birmingham captured a meteor streaking across the night sky on Wednesday.
The NWS Birmingham’s Twitter feed posted a video of the meteor blazing a trail over central Alabama at around 7:25 p.m. The agency’s skycam at the Shelby County Airport captured the fireball.
According to NASA, Earth is impacted by over 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles each day, and about once a year, an automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth’s atmosphere, which creates an impressive fireball that burns up before reaching the surface. About every 2,000 years, a meteoroid the size of a football field hits our planet and causes significant damage to the impact area.
Space rocks smaller than about about 82 feet usually burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere and cause little or no damage; however, should a meteoroid larger than 25 meters but smaller than one kilometer hit Earth, it would likely cause local damage to the impact area.
☄️We've received reports of a vivid and long-lasting meteor/fire ball . Well, we caught it on our skycam! The video begins at about 7:25 PM. pic.twitter.com/r0nHZSvMGg
— NWS Birmingham (@NWSBirmingham) December 5, 2019