A few weeks ago, we had a SpaceX launch that freaked out a ton of Californians. Tonight, we have an incoming weird sky phenomenon, as a meteor apparently exploded over southeastern Michigan, lighting up the sky and shaking houses.
Here’s one look at it, via dash cam and posted to YouTube by user Mike Austin, who notes it was taken on northbound I75 near Bloomfield Hills, a Detroit suburb:
Here are a few more videos of the event, captured by what appear to be home security cameras:
VIDEO: A meteor (or something) just landed in Detroit/Windsor area a few minutes ago, seeing reports that it shook houses. (📷: IG/moorethrottle) pic.twitter.com/q8XSCG9JVr
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 17, 2018
A friend who lives in another Detroit suburb said it shook her entire house.
“We thought it was an earthquake. My kids freaked TFO.”
That’s big! Hopefully some audio recordings emerge at some point.
That doesn’t quite rival the Russian meteor explosion from February 2013, which damaged 7,200 buildings and injured about 1,500 people, and remains one of the more fascinating astronomical events in recent memory:
If you’d like to know more about how these things happen, there’s an excellent NOVA on the topic, focusing on that Russian event, which you can find on YouTube.
Hopefully no damage was done in Michigan, but it’s a nice (and, all things considered, terrifying) reminder of how big a target the planet is for space debris. And also how useful dash cams are at capturing both insurance fraud and awesome (literal sense) events we might not otherwise see.
