The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball

The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball (or US19720810) was an Earth-grazing meteoroid which passed within 57 kilometres (35.4 miles) of the surface of the Earth at 20:29 UTC on August 10, 1972. It entered the Earth's atmosphere in daylight over Utah, United States (14:30 local time) and passed northwards leaving the atmosphere over Alberta, Canada. It was seen by many people and recorded on film and by space-borne sensors.

Analysis of its appearance and trajectory showed it was a meteoroid about 3 metres (9.8 ft) to 14 metres (46 ft) in diameter in the Apollo asteroid class in an Earth-crossing orbit that would make a subsequent close approach to Earth in August 1997. In 1994, Czech astronomer Zdenek Ceplecha re-analysed the data and suggested the passage would have reduced the meteoroid's mass to about a third or half of its original mass (reducing its diameter to 2 to 10 metres).

The meteoroid's 100-second passage through the atmosphere reduced its velocity by about 800 metres per second (2,600 ft/s) and the whole encounter significantly changed its orbital inclination from 15 degrees to 8 degrees.

If it had not entered at such a grazing angle, this meteoroid would have lost all its velocity in the upper atmosphere, possibly ending in an airburst, and any remnant would have fallen at terminal velocity.