( CNN ) -- The streaking ball of fire Friday night above the East Coast did not , alas , signal the end to civilization as we know it . Though you might get that sense from social media . The sky lit up along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard with reports of `` a thin streak of blue-greenish-white '' from people like Chip Guy , who was driving in eastern Maryland when he and his family he spotted it . `` It did n't last more than eight or nine seconds , then it disappeared , '' said Guy , a spokesman for Sussex County , Delaware . `` Frankly , I did n't think too much of it . '' But his tune changed once he posted something about the presumed meteor on a local social media web page , which triggered a quick and hearty response . Welcome to the year of the comet . That was just the tip of the online iceberg . Through Friday night , new reports of meteor sightings appeared every few seconds on Twitter , some of them from the metropolises of New York City and Washington . `` OMG I saw a real meteor in the Brooklyn 's sky , '' wrote one person on Twitter , with the handle Curious Sergey . `` It 's all over the news now ! I thought it is some kind of firework ... '' The Federal Aviation Administration fielded calls about a meteor from Virginia to Maine , said agency spokeswoman Arlene Salac . So what exactly was it ? Michael Kucharek , a spokesman for NORAD , said his agency heard about the sightings , too , and can confirm it was not from anything man-made , such as a plane or falling satellite . On Saturday , Bill Cooke from NASA 's Meteoroid Environment Office explained that the bright , fast-flying object was , in fact , a meteor . The space agency 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory defines a meteor as `` light phenomena '' from a meteoroid -- which is itself a comet or asteroid orbiting the sun -- that `` enters the Earth 's atmosphere and vaporizes . '' It made for quite a show , producing a fireball as bright as a full moon and spurring more than 630 visual reports to be submitted to the American Meteor Society , as it soared southwest into the Atlantic Ocean . But just because it was bright does n't mean it was big . The meteor was one yard in diameter , about the size of an exercise ball , when it entered the atmosphere over eastern Pennsylvania , said Cooke . That 's still big enough potentially to produce meteorites -- which are meteoroids , or fragments thereof , that do manage to hit the Earth -- before burning completely . If it did , though , they fell harmlessly into the Atlantic , according to Cooke . As anyone who has seen a shooting star can attest , it 's hardly unprecedented for otherworldly objects to enter the Earth 's atmosphere . And some of them do strike our planet , though they tend to be small when they do and strike unpopulated areas on land or plunge into the world 's oceans . There are exceptions , like the massive asteroid that many experts believe killed off dinosaurs . More recently , a meteor exploded over the steppes of southwestern Russia on February 15 , a blast that scientists at Canada 's University of Western Ontario estimated had the energy of about 30 early nuclear bombs . The related flash and boom shattered glass in buildings and left about 1,000 people hurt , authorities said . There were no confirmed reports Friday night that the greenish streak spotted by so many actually impacted anywhere . Even if it did n't , the mere possibility was enough to send chills down some stargazers ' spines . `` Seriously , after that massive meteor in california a few weeks ago , the one that hit russia , and now this hugee one tonight , '' wrote a Twitter user by the name of Olivia , referring to the Russia incident and a mass shooting star sighting on the West Coast last night . `` Little scaryy . '' Read more space and science news on Light Years . CNN 's John Branch contributed to this report .
NEW : The streak , as bright as a full moon , was a meteor 1 yard in diameter , NASA says . Comment: It entered the atmosphere over Pennsylvania , heading toward the Atlantic . The FAA says it fielded calls about meteor sightings from Virginia to Maine . The night light show spurs a flurry of activity on social media .