On Tuesday night, Detroit residents were startled by a bright flash of light caused by a meteor entering Earth’s atmosphere above Michigan’s capital. What was first thought to be a thunder and lighting was confirmed to be a pretty rare occurrence, a member of the the American Meteor Society tells Inverse.
The unusual event resulted in a slew of viral videos that showed the night sky brilliantly light up at around 8 p.m. local time. Mike Hankey, a software developer and member of the AMS, explains that these bystanders had captured something that happens only a few times a year.
“This was a good fireball, we might get one to three good ones like this in the U.S. per year,” he tells Inverse via email. “The airburst/sonic boom was recorded on seismic sensors, often times larger meteors can be detected on these sensors.”
