Meteor Seen Above Florida: Did It Light up the Skies? [WATCH]

Astronomers are examining reports of a bright meteor streaking through Florida and the Bahamas before crashing in a spectacular flash that multiple cameras captured.

In the above video from a surveillance camera at a Miami-area home, an eyewitness is surprised to see something dropping from the sky followed by a thunderous echo.

The noise may have been caused by a shock wave from the bolide breaking off or a sonic boom when it slammed into the atmosphere at high speed.

NPR said the meteor fell from the sky and disintegrated in a brief burst of light around 10 p.m. EDT. American Meteor Society also noted around 200 eyewitness reports, with a few dozen reporting hearing a sound.

National Weather Service Tampa Bay also captured the fireball blowing up off the Florida coast. The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), a satellite-borne instrument that watches for brightness variations to keep track of lightning occurrences, detected the bright flash, they tweeted.

American Meteor Society said per CNet that the blazing space rock most probably flew south to north across the Atlantic Ocean between Florida and the Bahamas. But whatever survived is most likely cooling off at the ocean's floor.

Was it Asteroid 2021 GW4?

Some skywatchers thought that the asteroid 2021 GW4, which is as large as a van, caused the fireball. Others argued that the timing was purely coincidental.

Space.com said the comet's measurement is about 14 feet (4 meters) across and left the Earth at a distance of 16,300 miles (26,200 kilometers).

Jay O'Brien, a CBS News anchor in West Palm Beach, tweeted a screenshot of the explosion burning in mid-air shortly later. CBS meteorologist Zach Covey said the fireball was most likely a "chunk of an asteroid."

He said in a now-deleted tweet that the asteroid is known as 2021 GW4 – a space rock set to travel by Earth that night.

Even though 2021 GW4 passed close by the Earth, astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics disagreed with Covey's hypothesis.

"It's a normal fireball and nothing to do with GW4," he tweeted.

What are Fireballs, Exactly?

Space.com said fireballs are any meteor that appears in the atmosphere at least as brightly as Venus; fireballs fall to Earth every day. According to the International Meteor Organization, these astronomical items go unnoticed when they fall over uninhabited areas throughout the day or under cloud cover.

Here's how NASA defines meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites, according to its website:

"Meteoroids are objects in space that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids. Think of them as 'space rocks.' When meteoroids enter Earth's atmosphere at high speed and burn up, the fireballs or 'shooting stars' are called meteors. When a meteoroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground, it's called a meteorite."

Check out more news and information on Space on Science Times.