February 05, 2016
A New Jersey pilot who recently captured footage of a shooting star may be the first known person to observe the phenomenon from an aircraft.
Wall Township resident Mike Grossman was taking a practice flight from Monmouth County to Fort Lee last Saturday when he noticed a flashing light zoom toward earth over the George Washington Bridge, according to ABC 7. The flash was caught by a wing camera on Grossman's single-engine Piper Archer just after 6 p.m. as he turned around to head home.
Grossman, who was flying at an altitude of 1,500 feet, described what he saw as a "bright light streaking across the sky" and contacted another individual on his radio to determine whether he had also seen it. The man suggested it might have been lights from aircraft or a tower at nearby Newark airport, but Grossman insisted it had to be a shooting star.
A meteorite researcher from Tokyo, who saw Grossman's video online, later contacted him for more information about what happened. After analyzing GPS data from Grossman's flight, he speculated the meteorite must have landed somewhere in Pennsylvania, although that has not been confirmed.
The Tokyo researcher was also able to track down a video recorded on the same night in Falls Church, Va., where he believes the same meteorite was visible from street level.
Experts believe meteorites and other forms of cosmic debris impact the earth between five and 10 times a year, occasionally creating shockwaves and causing damage on Earth. Based on data from the Meteoritical Society, this interactive map shows every known meteor impact on Earth dating back to 2300 B.C.
