(WWJ) -- A ball of fire lit up the sky -- and social media -- in the early hours of Wednesday over southeast Michigan.
The American Meteor Society reported sightings of last night’s burst of light from all across Michigan, and even as far away as Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and a few other states.
Spotted around 12:45 a.m.,metro Detroiters in Belleville, Clinton Township, Fraser, Freeland, Holly, Howell, Pontiac, Romulus, Warren and other areas all reported witnessing the phenomenon.
Nearly a full day later, many are still wondering what exactly it was.
The American Meteor Society believes it was a fireball, which are described as meteors brighter than Venus that can appear like a plane on fire.
According to Mike Murray, Astronomer and Planetary Manager at Delta College, the earth is currently traveling through debris from Halley’s comet in an event called the Orionid meteor shower.
“In many times, when these larger meteors enter the atmosphere, they will break off into pieces,” Murray said. “If you do see it breaking up or even explode, that’s an even more rare kind of meteor called a bolide, so that’s what it sounds like this was.”
Others have different ideas of what it may have been -- including Cranbrook Astronomer Mike Narlock.
While the Orionid meteor shower is expected to hit its peak Wednesday night, Narlock says “we don’t generally see huge fireballs like this associated with these types of meteor showers."
“What I think it is, is a chunk of space debris,” Narlock told WWJ’s Sandra McNeill late Wednesday afternoon.
As for what exactly that space debris may have been, he’s not entirely sure. Some on the Internet Wednesday speculated it was debris from Russia’s Kosmos satellite, which failed after launch back in September.
But Narlock finds that tough to believe for one reason.
“NASA and the other space agencies and some other organizations do a pretty good job of tracking all of the garbage that’s in orbit around the earth, so I would think that they would have a good handle on it if it was something that was put into orbit so recently by the Russians,” Narlock said.
Did you spot the fireball in metro Detroit last night? Tweet @WWJ950 your photos and videos!
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