U.S. Space Force releases data on bright fireballs
Nearly 1,000 brilliant fireballs — big meteors that (mostly) burn up in Earth’s atmosphere — have hit our planet since 1988. We know this because the U.S. Department of Defense has been tracking them.
For years the Department of Defense (DoD) released only basic information about these events. Now, via a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Space Force, the DoD is making public additional data on the brightest fireballs to aid basic research and planetary defense.
If you’ve watched meteor showers, you may have seen a fireball. These meteors are the brilliant ones, brighter than Venus, that occur when a bigger-than-usual space rock slams into our upper atmosphere. Bolides represent the brightest fireballs (though in practice, the terms are often used interchangeably).
