Speed is known for just 33.6% of fireballs in NASA’s catalogue
Of 1,073 records, 601 give the altitude of the flash and 361 the speed. A blank means “not reported”, not zero.
More
An attractive global catalogue can contain large, non-random gaps. Any speed comparison concerns only records with reported speed.
Bars share one scale. The source values and their units are listed below.
- All records events
1,073 (2026-10-06)
- Speed reported events
361 (2026-10-06)
- Altitude reported events
601 (2026-10-06)
Sort 1073 published NASA/JPL CNEOS records by approximate impact energy. Snapshot 2026-10-06; coverage 1988-04-15–2026-09-15. This is an incomplete sensor-report catalogue, not all atmospheric impacts. Count non-null alt and vel fields. Missing parameters do not become zeros; groups overlap and are not additive.
NASA/JPL CNEOS, U.S. Government sensors, API v1.2. UTC time of peak brightness. Total impact energy is an empirical estimate, not energy of a ground strike or damage. Optical energy converted from 10¹⁰ J into J. Altitude refers to peak brightness. Missing values are not zero; many fireballs are unreported, so catalogue record counts do not estimate real incidence or its trend. CNEOS does not independently verify parameters. Event-level uncertainty/provenance is limited; speeds are not used to infer new orbits or interstellar origins.
A question for this picture
Which measure would change this story?