Fireball in Mississippi Generates 3 Tons of TNT Energy Resulting in a Loud Explosion and Quake

Residents in Mississippi heard a loud explosion that rocked several homes Wednesday morning around 8:03 a.m. CDT (9:03 a.m. EDT). It was a fireball blazing through the early skies, according to NASA.

The fireball was seen by about 30 persons in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. It was followed by "many" reports of a loud boom from Claiborne County, Mississippi. Officials characterized it as a "primarily heard, scarcely seen" fireball.

"What struck me as unusual was how few eyewitness reports we had given the skies were so clear," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office said in a statement.

The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument onboard the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) 16 and 17 saw a series of brilliant flashes that scientists believe were generated by the meteor breaking up in the atmosphere.

Satellites initially noticed the object 54 miles (87 kilometers) above the Mississippi River near Alcorn, Mississippi, Space.com reported.

NASA Says A 90-Pound Asteroid Shook Mississippi

According to NASA, the item was most likely a "piece of an asteroid" weighing around 90 pounds and measuring about a foot in diameter. Although the incident did not cause any harm, Cooke told USA Today that several individuals reported feeling their houses quake.

"The fragmentation of this fireball generated an energy equivalent of 3 tons of TNT (trinitrotoluene), which created shock waves that propagated to the ground, producing the booms and vibrations felt by people in the area," the space agency said per WIONews.

Even though most people simply heard it, it was more than 10 times brighter than the full Moon at its brightest.

Cooke went on to say that the space rock slammed into the atmosphere at a speed of 55,000 miles per hour, causing the dazzling blaze. It also disintegrated, resulting in the pressure waves that triggered the booms and shaking.

According to him, pressure increased up near the front of the fireball as it traveled further into the sky. The fireball shattered apart and caused a minor explosion as the pressure differential between the front and back of the space rock increased.

Scientists believe the asteroid was a 1-foot (0.3 meter) wide asteroid that fragmented around 34 miles (55 kilometers) above a marshy region of Louisiana, north of the town Minorca.

Locals Record Fireball

The bolide, or exceptionally brilliant meteor, was likely 10 times brighter than the full moon at its peak. Despite its fantastic brilliance, few individuals claimed to have seen it in the sky.

WREG obtained dashcam footage of the descending fireball in Mississippi.

The Vicksburg Post stated that it wasn't obvious at first if the fireball that many witnessed and the loud roar were linked. The Claiborne County Emergency Management Agency even had to release a statement to reassure residents that the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station was "not implicated" in the loud noise and "the site is secure."

However, satellites recorded multiple brilliant flashes linked with the space rock that disintegrated 34 miles over a Louisiana "swampy region."

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