Meteor streaks across skies of Southern US, generating energy equivalent to 3 tons of TNT

MISSISSIPPI (TND) – A brilliant fireball was spotted in the skies above Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi on Wednesday and NASA confirms that it was, in fact, a meteor.

NASA says more than30 eyewitness accounts detailed seeing the meteor just after 8 a.m. CDT and it was first spotted above the Mississippi River near the town of Alcorn. The sightings were followed by multiple reports of loud booms heard inClaiborne County, Mississippi, and surrounding counties.

NOAA’s Geostationary Lightning Mappers spotted the flashes associated with the bolide— what scientists call an exceptionally bright meteor —22,00 miles out in the space.

The mysterious object is thought to be a piece of an asteroid measuring about a foot in diameter and weighing around 90 pounds.

NASA says it was moving at 55,000 miles per hour, breaking into fragments as it entered the Earth's atmosphere. It disintegrated about 34 miles from the town of Minorca, Louisiana.

“What struck me as unusual was how few eyewitness reports we had given the skies were so clear,” said Bill Cooke, lead of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “More people heard it than saw it.”

According to scientists, the meteor was 10 times brighter than a full moon and created an energy equivalent to three tons of TNT.