A falling fireball seen in the sky in parts of the Southeast was caused by a type of meteor called a bolide.

The fireball was spotted Thursday just before 12:30 p.m., the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City, Georgia, said.

Shortly thereafter, reports also came in about an earthquake, which the NWS said was actually a sonic boom produced by the falling object.

The fireball was produced by a bolide, a type of meteor that explodes with a bright terminal flash, according to scientists.

Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office said that the bolide ultimately burst about 27 miles above West Forest, Georgia, producing a shockwave as powerful as the blast of 20 tons of TNT, reported The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina.

In a CNN interview, American Meteor Society Operations Manager Mike Hankey described a bolides as a type of meteor that’s “large enough that it will break apart and blow up in the sky, and then fragments from it oftentimes will fall to the Earth.”

Mr. Hankey also said the meteor was sent out of the solar system’s asteroid belt towards Earth either by another asteroid bumping it or by force produced by Jupiter.

In addition to the light and sound produced by the falling fireball, Henry County Emergency Management told the NWS office that a rock fell through the roof of a county resident at the same time. That rock was presumably part of the meteor.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.