Fireball streaks across North Texas, creating light show and sonic boom

A fireball streaked across North Texas last night, leading to several hundred witness reports of a bright flash and sonic boom.

The celestial drama occurred around 9 p.m. local time on Sunday (July 25), according to CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. The nonprofit American Meteor Society (AMS) has since recorded 213 reports of the fireball, including three videos. The witnesses were mostly in northeastern Texas, but some reported seeing the fireball above Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Videos of that fireball show a large object streaking across the sky for a few seconds. Most people who reported seeing the fireball estimated that it lasted between 3 and 4 seconds. About 14 people who saw the object said it made a sound as it streaked through the sky.
A fireball is any meteor that is about as bright as the planet Venus in the evening sky, according to the AMS. As this NASA map shows, fireballs occur around the world with regularity. These objects can start fairly large, according to NASA, measuring more than 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter before the friction of the atmosphere begins burning them up. They don't typically survive to reach the ground, though some larger fireballs might explode into fragments that can be found by meteorite hunters. Fireballs that explode are known as bolides.