NASA has confirmed dozens of eyewitness accounts in the Tampa Bay area of a fireball streaking across the sky on Tuesday evening.

Amateur video filmed by local residents shows the fireball dramatically appearing to drop out of the sky and then exploding behind cloud cover.

The national space agency said that it had received over 60 reports of the fireball from bay area residents, according to WFTS-TV.

NASA has confirmed dozens of eyewitness accounts in the Tampa Bay area of a fireball streaking across the sky on Tuesday evening

Amateur video filmed by local residents shows the fireball dramatically appearing to drop out of the sky and then exploding behind cloud cover

The national space agency said that it had received over 60 reports of the fireball from bay area residents

The American Meteor Society, a non-profit scientific organization that tracks sightings, said that it, too, received at least 55 reports of a fireball

Fireballs, a kind of meteor, are measured by their brightness on a scale known as apparent magnitude

A meteor is seen when comet debris or fragments of an asteroid strike the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed

The American Meteor Society, a non-profit scientific organization that tracks sightings, said that it, too, received at least 55 reports of a fireball.

Fireballs, a kind of meteor, are measured by their brightness on a scale known as apparent magnitude.

A meteor is seen when comet debris or fragments of an asteroid strike the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed.

Intense heat is created by the compression of the air ahead of the meteoroid, which usually causes the object to burn up in the atmosphere.

This creates the white 'shooting star' that we are all familiar with. This process also ionizes the atmosphere along the trail, making it possible to reflect radio waves.