MEDINA (AP) — Meteorite hunters fanned out across a wide swath of Ohio on Thursday, hoping to collect fragments of an estimated 7-ton space rock that crashed into Earth this week after a dazzling fireball that was seen from hundreds of miles away.

The meteoroid broke apart around 9 a.m. Tuesday over Valley City, a half-hour south of Cleveland, after it sped through the atmosphere at about 45,000 miles per hour. It caused a sonic boom that rattled buildings and caused fears of an explosion. The fireball was seen from Wisconsin to Maryland, and NASA confirmed it was a meteoroid nearly 6 feet in diameter.

Medina resident December Harris didn’t have to go looking — her cousin and roommate, Ambra Sinclair, found a small black rock they suspect is a meteorite when she was leaving for work. They had heard the sonic boom Tuesday morning but figured it might have been noise from a nearby airport.

Harris said her roommate found the rock in a 4-foot area between the garage and the house late Wednesday morning. She described it as somewhat triangular shaped, less than 2 inches in diameter — and “very, very black,” with pits on the surface, grooves and a melted texture on its exterior.

Meteoroids are traveling at very high speeds when they suddenly hit gases that blanket Earth, causing tremendous stress as they compress the air in front of them. That heats the rock, which melts and breaks apart.