Meteorites from fireball that rattled Mississippi homes are being found, NASA says

Days after a fireball rattled Mississippi houses and was spotted in nearby states, NASA has confirmed fragments of the meteorite have been found in the Magnolia State.

The fireball was spotted at 8:03 a.m. CT Wednesday, Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office previously told USA TODAY. Actually a piece of an asteroid – about a foot long and weighing 80 to 90 pounds – the fireball was "way too small" to cause any damage, Cooke said. But Mississippi residents reported feeling their houses shake.

NASA said the fireball "generated an energy equivalent of 3 tons of TNT" and that it appeared 10 times brighter than the full moon at its peak before it disintegrated 34 miles above the swampy area north of Minorca in Louisiana.

'Not a natural fireball': An unusual fireball raced across the Midwest sky, group says

More fireballs: A fireball passing through the atmosphere at 32,000 mph was caught on camera in North Carolina

On Saturday, NASA Meteor Watch said the number of eyewitness accounts had doubled, as the fireball actually traveled 35,000 mph, not the initially reported speed of 55,000 mph.

NASA added that meteorites were found in an area east of Natchez on the Louisiana-Mississippi border, around 80 miles southwest of Jackson. U.S. law says any meteorite found on private property belongs to the owner of the property, so NASA wouldn't disclose where the meteorites were found. The group later shared a picture of a meteorite someone had found.

NASA suggested that if people in the area believe they have found a meteorite from the fireball, to alert a meteorite group at Washington University in St. Louis.

"We are not meteorite people, as our main focus is protecting spacecraft and astronauts from meteoroids," NASA said. "So we will be unable to identify any strange rocks you may find - please do not send us rock photos, as we will not respond."

There have been 1,878 verified meteorites in the United States from 1807 to August 2021, according to the Meteoritical Society. If the meteorite in Mississippi is verified, it would be the fifth recorded in the state, and the first since 2012, NASA said.

Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pieces from fireball that rattled Mississippi homes are being found