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March 17, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n An asteroid just exploded above Ohio with the force of 250 tons of TNT<\/p>\n Eyewitness accounts and videos taken from across the Midwest reveal the streak of a large fireball across the daytime sky<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n This image, taken with a meteorite tracking device developed by amateur astronomer George Varros, shows a meteorite as it enters Earth\u2019s atmosphere during the Leonid meteor shower on November 19, 2002.<\/p>\n Photo by George Varros and Dr. Peter Jenniskens\/NASA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n A flashy fireball streaked across the skies above the Midwest on Tuesday, falling to Earth near Lake Erie and Ohio at around 9:00 AM EDT. Some reported hearing a boom loud enough to shake their houses.<\/p>\n The object appears to have been a seven-ton asteroid that spanned nearly six feet in diameter, according to NASA. When it fell, it was traveling at around 40,000 miles per hour in a southeasterly direction before \u201cfragmenting\u201d\u2014blowing up\u2014over Valley City in Ohio. The explosion had the equivalent force of 250 tons of TNT, the agency said, and \u201cmay have also shook houses north of Medina.\u201d<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n The blast sent a wave of pressure toward the ground, which would have been heard by local residents. Some fragments of the meteor fell as meteorites near Medina, NASA said, but it\u2019s unclear if there was any damage as a result of the fireball.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat occurred this morning was a daylight fireball at least several feet across,\u201d says Robert Lunsford, who helps coordinate fireball reports at the American Meteor Society. \u201cThis is large enough to survive down to the lower atmosphere, where the air molecules are dense enough to carry sound. Therefore, people under the path of this fireball heard a delayed sonic boom produced by this fireball.\u201d<\/p>\n Early on, the object didn\u2019t have the characteristics of a piece of space junk\u2014another possible falling space object\u2014astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell noted ahead of NASA\u2019s identification. \u201cSpace debris usually has slowed to below supersonic by the time it gets low enough that it would make an audible boom,\u201d McDowell says.<\/p>\n Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) lightning satellite image of the Ohio fireball.<\/p>\n Alan Gerard\/Balanced Weather\/NOAA<\/p>\n It\u2019s also a mystery where the asteroid came from. Earth is bombarded by falling space dust and rocks all the time, but only some of these are large enough to make it close enough to the ground to be visible in the daytime without first burning up in our atmosphere. If any part of a meteor survives the journey to land on the ground, it becomes a meteorite.<\/p>\n \u201cWe receive several reports of daylight fireballs per month from all over the world,\u201d Lunsford says. \u201cIf they are large and bright enough, they can be seen against the blue daytime sky. So it\u2019s rare for an individual to see one of these but fairly common over the entire planet. Still, they make up far less than one percent of the total number of fireballs reported to us.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a breaking news story and may be updated.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 17, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm An asteroid just exploded above Ohio with the force of 250 tons of TNT Eyewitness accounts and videos taken from across the Midwest reveal the streak of a large fireball across the daytime sky By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron This image,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[1871,17018,2628,6718,23865,4060],"class_list":{"0":"post-46989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-asteroid","9":"tag-exploded","10":"tag-force","11":"tag-ohio","12":"tag-tnt","13":"tag-tons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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