A 500 pound meteor tore through the sky above Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the night of February 17 and dazzled sky gazers and witnesses with a fiery display of lights.

Astronomers estimate the space rock is about two feet in diameter and traveled at a velocity of 45,000 miles per hour as it ripped through the night sky. The meteor appeared above the western Pennsylvania night sky and was first documented by three NASA black and white cameras used for imaging shooting stars.

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The meteor was last monitored 13 miles above the Earth's surface. Scientists and experts investigating this fiery rock said remnants of this meteor impacted in eastern Pennsylvania.

NASA researchers believe the meteor originated from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It explains this phenomenon with a  video that captured the meteor's journey and posted on NASA's Meteor Watch page on Facebook.

NASA officials said on the Meteor Watch page this celestial rock had an orbit that began at the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and ended with a fiery display of lights in the predawn skies over Pennsylvania.

The Earth's atmosphere was illuminated by heat generated by the meteor's friction as it entered the atmosphere. The majority of these meteors are destroyed as they burn up in the atmosphere before ever reaching the surface of our planet.

Throughout the history of the planet, massive meteors have caused significant damage, however. The last time a large meteor hit a major city was in February 15, 2013 when a massive meteor flew over Chelyabinsk in Russia at speeds of 40,000 miles per hour.

The meteor exploded some 18 miles above the city with a population of 1.13 million. It was estimated the energy released by that meteor created destructive forces 20 to 30 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on  Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945. 

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