New Jersey

Fireball Streaks Across Tri-State Skies

Hundreds of people in the tri-state area saw a fireball streak across the afternoon sky Wednesday afternoon, according to one scientific group. 

The American Meteor Society, a nonprofit astronomy group, said that at least 150 people from northern Maryland to eastern New Hampshire reported seeing the fireball --  which the group describes as a meteor brighter in the sky than Venus, one of the brightest celestial bodies in a night sky -- at about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. 

The group, which also aggregates reported sightings on a map, said that it appeared that the fireball traveled from northeast to southwest before ending its flight hundreds of miles southeast of the Long Island shore.

One New Jersey resident posted a dashcam video to YouTube showing the fireball crossing the sky in Monmouth County. The footage shows a bright light streak across the sky before disappearing. 

According to the American Meteor Society, several thousand meteors capable of creating fireballs pass into the Earth's atmosphere every day. But the organization said the vast majority of those meteors pass over uninhabited regions or are masked by daylight. 

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