Did you see a giant ball of light zoom across the sky in the Chicago area and across the Midwest Monday night? You weren’t alone.
Hundreds of people from the suburbs of Chicago to northwest Indiana to Michigan and beyond reported seeing a fireball soar across the sky, according to sightings reported to the American Meteor Society.
The reports came in from Joliet to Addison to Chicago to Waukegan to Carpentersville and several other locations.
On social media, residents reported seeing the flying ball of light from Grayslake to Arlington Heights and more. Some also reported a loud boom associated with the scene.
“It was green as can be, and it was MOVIN FAST and eventually just fizzled out,” one user wrote.
“Arlington heights residents report sonic booms and green fireball,” another stated.
So what exactly was it?
“I can’t say for sure, but based on the videos and the speed of the object, this looks more like space junk than a meteor to me,” NBC 5 Storm Team Meteorologist Kevin Jeanes said. “Possibly parts to a satellite or rocket. This has become more common as we’re getting more space debris orbiting earth.”
NBC Chicago asked the Adler Planetarium about the sightings and Michelle Nichols, the museum’s senior director of public programs, had some thoughts.
“So a fireball is basically a really, really bright meteor. So something enters Earth’s atmosphere, it’s going really fast, it burns up. And if it lasts for longer than a second or two, then it tends to be a little brighter, lasts a little longer, we call that a fireball. And these are generally just pieces of material from space, so they can be pieces of asteroids or small rocks in space, or they can be pieces of space junk – so something that might’ve been orbiting Earth that fell into Earth’s atmosphere,” Nichols said.
She noted that there were several hundred reports of “people seeing something burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in the Chicago area” Monday night.
“People saw it all over Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and it seems to have been a path that was seen from basically southern Michigan heading northward. And this object, as far as I could tell, appeared to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere,” she said. “So, as for what it was, that would still need to be determined. All the video that I saw tended to maybe lean toward just a larger piece of space rock that might’ve burned up, but have to see if there might’ve been any pieces of space debris that might have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, although that orbit might not have been quite right for that. So if I had to guess, I’d lean toward just a a larger piece of space rock.”
While such sightings are actually quite common, Nichols noted that Monday night’s scene made for the perfect large-scale sighting recipe.
“Fireballs happen every single day. And they happen somewhere on Earth many times a day. And the reason that we don’t often really know about them is most of Earth is covered in water and so most of these would tend to happen over water. And, unless you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean, you probably won’t see this,” she said. “And so the fact that it happened in populated areas, with people with lots of cameras and early in the evening and when people are out, it definitely helps for being able to have more people see this.”
For those who missed it, Nichols said there are some big moments coming up in the sky to watch for, including the Perseid meteor shower and a partial lunar eclipse in August.
“If you want to go out when the moon is a little darker in the Sky, Hey, maybe you’ll get lucky and see a fireball too,” she said.
