‘Woah!’ What the heck was that huge flash in the sky over Miami? Experts weigh in

Madeleine Marr
·2 min read

What in the actual....?

Some folks in South Florida and its environs got an eyeful of well, something, Monday night.

Videos circulating on social media Tuesday morning show a brilliant flash of light that seems to explode as it hits earth.

A Twitter user with the handle @thecollinlee was able to get amazing footage by Red Road while driving.

The American Meteor Society tweeted that a “fireball” was spotted between Florida and the Bahamas around 10:15 p.m.

Best educated guess? It was a chunk of an asteroid that NASA had predicted would pass close to Earth.

Among the witnesses who got quite a shock was @CBS12 reporter Jay O’Brien, who accidentally caught a glimpse of the dramatic sight during a live newscast in West Palm Beach.

“Woah! Big flash and streak across sky in West Palm Beach,” tweeted O’Brien with the fireworks. “Working to figure out what it was.”

CBS12 colleague, local weatherman Zach Covey, chimed in soon after the sightings: “The flash of light observed in South Florida not long ago was [likely] a chunk of an asteroid known as 2021 GW4. It was scheduled to make an extremely close approach of only 16,000 miles. The asteroid is the size of a car, roughly 14 feet.”

Though the fireball looked terrifying and something out of a sci-fi flick, astronomers say it posed no threat to humans because it would never survive a journey through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Translation: You can sit back on your couch now.

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