➀ A bright fireball streaked across the daytime sky, astonishing onlookers and generating a sonic boom that rattled homes from Georgia to the Carolinas.

➁ Scientists believe a meteor, estimated to be three feet in diameter and weighing over a ton, punched through Earth's atmosphere at 30,000 miles per hour.

➂ The meteor's rapid descent produced a sonic boom, which many initially mistook for an earthquake.