Ontario drivers stunned by fireball meteor during morning commute
A rare daytime fireball meteor lit up the sky on Tuesday morning, with sightings reported across the U.S. and parts of Ontario, including Mississauga, Brampton, and even as far away as Kingston.
The bright streak, which was also linked to a loud boom heard in Ontario, was captured in multiple videos circulating on social media, showing a glowing object tearing across the sky before eventually flashing as it burned through Earth's atmosphere.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed that the event was caused by a small asteroid measuring nearly six feet across and weighing almost seven tonnes, or just over 6,350 kilograms.
One of our employees, Jared Rackley, caught this morning's meteor on camera from the Pittsburgh area. pic.twitter.com/2LdqOpChti
— NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) March 17, 2026
The fireball reportedly moved southeast at 45 km per hour before fragmenting over Valley City. The fragments then continued to the south and produced meteorites in the vicinity of Medina County, Ohio.
"Many eyewitnesses in the states of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Ontario have filed reports on the American Meteor Society website of a very bright daylight fireball seen March 17 at 8:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time," NASA wrote.
A bright meteor streaked over Ohio and Pennsylvania on Tuesday, rattling houses and releasing energy equivalent to 250 tons of TNT when it broke apart. ☄️ pic.twitter.com/6QK7qKsVQy
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) March 19, 2026
Residents in the Cleveland area reported a "deep, powerful blast that shook houses, rattled windows, and sent people rushing outside to see what had happened," when speaking to local news outlets.
According to NASA, the asteroid unleashed an energy of 250 tonnes of TNT when it fragmented, "resulting in a pressure wave which propagated to the ground, causing the booms and explosive noises heard by many of the public."
Despite the fragmentation occurring over Ohio, residents across Ontario reported seeing the fireball meteor in broad daylight.
One video posted to Reddit shows the object blazing across the sky near Brampton on Derry Road East just off the Highway 410 exit at approximately 9 a.m. "Must've been huge to be this visible in the daylight; it was even brighter in person," the eyewitness wrote.
St Patty's Meteor
by u/MarblesFromSpace in toronto
In a separate Reddit post, one resident reported seeing the event in Kingston.
"8:56 am flaming meteorite from the sky. Was looking at the horizon when driving on the 401 this morning when, up in the sky near Wolf Island, I saw a flaming object falling from the sky. Did anyone else see this?" they wrote.
Other witnesses quickly chimed in with similar reports. "Saw it in the eastern sky around 9am, driving on the 401 near Mississauga (was close enough to the airport that it scared me for a second)," one person responded.
8:56 am flaming meteorite from the sky
by u/FearOfTears in KingstonOntario
"I saw it today around same time in Mississauga, I was driving west on Bloor and saw a red ball of fire falling in the horizon. It was pretty low and disappeared after a few seconds," another response reads.
"I saw it in Mississauga driving SW around 9 AM in morning. It was a flash of light behind the clouds," one more resident wrote.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's weather satellite, which orbits about 22,000 miles above Earth, also captured the fireball as it streaked through the atmosphere.
Officials later confirmed that the loud bang reported by many witnesses was a sonic boom caused by the fragmenting space rock, according to a statement posted by the Cleveland branch of the National Weather Service.
The American Meteor Society says a fireball is another term for a very bright meteor that is generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude as the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky.
"Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth's atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight," the organization says. "Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them."
