A rare daylight fireball that streaked across the southeastern United States on Thursday was caused by a one-ton asteroidal fragment, NASA said on Friday. The object entered the atmosphere at about 12:25 p.m. Eastern time and was initially detected 48 miles above Oxford, Georgia before disintegrating in an air-burst 27 miles above West Forest, south-east of Atlanta. Travelling at roughly 30,000 mph, the three-foot-wide space rock released energy equivalent to around 20 tons of TNT, generating a pressure wave that produced loud booms and ground tremors reported across metropolitan Atlanta and parts of South Carolina. Satellite lightning sensors aboard NOAA’s GOES-19 spacecraft and Doppler weather radars captured the brief flash despite clear midday skies. The American Meteor Society logged at least 215 eyewitness reports from six states—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee—while National Weather Service offices fielded dozens of calls about shaking that seismographs later ruled out as an earthquake. In Henry County, Georgia, officials are examining a golf-ball-sized rock that pierced a homeowner’s roof and floor shortly after the blast; meteorite experts are analysing the fragment. Fire crews in Anderson County, South Carolina also searched rural areas after residents reported possible impacts, though no additional damage has been confirmed. Daytime bolides are uncommon—estimates suggest only a handful are seen worldwide each year—and researchers are investigating whether the fragment is linked to the late-June Beta Taurid stream. No injuries were reported, but NASA and local agencies urge anyone finding unusual rocks near the projected ground track to contact authorities for verification.