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4h ago

NASA Confirms Daylight Meteor Over Northeast Ohio Triggered Sonic Boom

Officials are analyzing satellite and camera data to refine the object’s trajectory.

A fireball streaks across the sky in a video captured by a National Weather Service employee in Pittsburgh.
The National Weather Service in Cleveland said that per GLM imagery, a loud boom heard in Northeast Ohio on March 17, 2026, was the result of a meteor landing.
Image
Ohio meteor

Overview

  • NASA and the National Weather Service verified that a bright fireball seen around 8:56–9:01 a.m. ET on March 17 was a meteor that fragmented aloft, producing a loud boom across northeast Ohio and parts of surrounding states.
  • GOES-19’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper recorded a flash initially flagged as lightning, and multiple ground videos — including footage from NWS Pittsburgh — captured the streaking fireball.
  • NASA estimates the object was roughly six feet across and about seven tons, first visible about 50 miles above Lake Erie before breaking up near 30 miles over Valley City on a southward track.
  • The breakup released energy on the order of 250 tons of TNT, with the pressure wave shaking homes; a seismometer in Lorain County detected ground motion coincident with the event.
  • Hundreds of eyewitness reports reached the American Meteor Society from multiple states and Ontario, and while analysts are mapping a potential strewn field, there are no confirmed injuries or meteorite recoveries.