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This image taken from video shows a suspected meteor falling through the sky in the greater Pittsburgh, Pa., area on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (Jared Rackley via AP)<\/p>\n
The Earth is under assault. Space rocks are constantly hurtling toward us, slamming into the atmosphere and often exploding into fireballs that both delight and alarm.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the vast majority cause no damage because they are pulverized into dust or small chunks by the journey to Earth.<\/p>\n
A fireball streaked across the sky\u00a0near Cleveland this week<\/a>, caused by what was thought to be a space rock nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) across and weighing 7 tons. It was seen from Wisconsin to Maryland, according to the American Meteor Society.<\/p>\n It traveled more than 34 miles (55 kilometers) through the upper atmosphere before breaking apart, according to NASA. No fragments have been found yet.<\/p>\n Barrie’s News Delivered To Your Inbox<\/p>\n Stay up to date with what Barrie’s talking about. Get the latest local news delivered right to your inbox every day. Never miss out on what’s going on …<\/p>\n \t\tConsent Info<\/a><\/p>\n By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Central Ontario Broadcasting, 431 Huronia Rd, Barrie, Ontario, CA, https:\/\/www.cobroadcasting.com. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe\u00ae link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact<\/a><\/p>\n As dramatic as it was, it was also incredibly common. Here’s what to know:<\/p>\n What’s the difference between a meteor and an asteroid?<\/p>\n An asteroid is a chunk of rock, ice or metal that’s left over from the solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago. A meteoroid is a fragment of a larger space rock such as an asteroid or comet. A meteor is the light emitted from a meteoroid or asteroid as it burns up through the atmosphere. If a meteor is brighter than the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky, it is called a fireball. If a chunk of it makes it to land, it’s called a meteorite.<\/p>\n How common are meteors?<\/p>\n Flashes of light from meteoroids are incredibly common, and there are times \u2014 called meteor showers \u2014 when they can be seen every few minutes in the night sky, weather permitting.\u00a0The Perseids meteor shower<\/a>, which happens in mid-August every year,\u00a0is considered the best<\/a>, according to NASA.<\/p>\n How common are fireballs?<\/p>\n There are \u201cseveral thousand\u201d meteors that would qualify as fireballs in the Earth’s atmosphere every day, according to the meteor society. The problem is that most occur over oceans or other places where people don’t live, or the sun is too bright to notice them.<\/p>\n Still, plenty are seen by people. And if you see one, the\u00a0American Meteor Society<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0International Meteor Organization<\/a>\u00a0want you to tell them so they can check it out. So far in 2026, 10 fireballs have drawn more than 100 reports, which averages nearly one per week.<\/p>\n Why do meteoroids break up before they land?<\/p>\n Meteoroids travel through empty space at extraordinarily high speeds \u2014 from 25,000 mph (40,233 kph) to as high as 160,000 mph (257,495 kph). When they suddenly hit the gases that blanket Earth, they undergo incredible stress as they compress the air in front of them, which heats the object to the point it starts to melt and break apart.<\/p>\n What do you think of this article?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This image taken from video shows a suspected meteor falling through the sky in the greater Pittsburgh, Pa.,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-550845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}