A Large Meteor Spotted Streaking Fast Across The Sky Of Some States

A large meteor streaked across the sky of several states including Wisconsin and Illinois at about 1:30 a.m. on Monday. It also lit the sky in some states in the Midwest.

#Meteor over Lake Michigan lights up the sky Monday morning across several states in the Midwest. https://t.co/eC4vXQkXQq pic.twitter.com/znbt532xEf

— AP Central U.S. (@APCentralRegion) February 6, 2017

Jeff Last, a meteorologist of the National Weather Service's office in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said that the meteor was accompanied by a sonic boom that shook houses in the region. The dash cam video from police cruisers captured the meteor passing over the Lake Michigan, according to Fox News.

Yes, that bright green fireball was a meteor: More than 300 people reported the sighting near Lake Michigan at 1:25… https://t.co/DCuWp17IYy — RE News Chicago (@RENewsChicago) February 6, 2017

The meteor is almost as big as a car. It is thought that some pieces of the meteor "most definitely" impacted the lake. Mike Hankey from the American Meteor Society said that the cloud of debris was picked up on NOAA's NEXRAD Doppler Weather Radar, so this is a definitive source that rocks made it all the way down. He further said that reports of sonic booms also suggest it survived passage through the upper atmosphere.

Popular Mechanics reports that the AMS classifies the fireball as a meteor brighter than the magnitude -4. On the other hand, the meteor last night was much brighter than that as the stars in the sky are brighter than magnitude -4. This is equivalent to the brightness of the planet Venus.

Hankey said that the exact magnitude of the meteor last night is not identified yet. On the other hand, he said that it rivaled the brightness of the Sun and they can tell that by the shadows it cast in some of the videos.