Reports of a loud explosion reverberated across New England in the United States on a Saturday afternoon, prompting authorities to investigate the origin of the twin booms that rattled buildings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The American Meteor Society disclosed that the booming sounds were triggered by a meteor nearly one meter wide descending into the atmosphere near the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border, north of Boston.
NASA verified that the meteor constituted natural material, ruling out the possibility of it being a satellite or space debris, and documented its entry into the atmosphere at 2:06 p.m. Robert Lunsford, a program monitor at the American Meteor Society, noted an influx of reports spanning from Delaware to Montreal, with individuals either hearing the dual boom, sensing ground vibrations, or witnessing the fireball resembling a daylight shooting star.
Describing the occurrence as larger than a typical fireball, Lunsford expressed skepticism about the meteor making ground contact. He explained that conclusive evidence regarding impact would necessitate additional data on trajectory, velocity, and related factors, suggesting that if it evaded disintegration, it would have likely landed in the ocean, as most meteors burn up before reaching the surface.
NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel disclosed that the meteor was hurtling at approximately 120,700 km/h and likely disintegrated around 60 kilometers above ground level. The agency estimated the energy release during fragmentation to be akin to 300 tonnes of TNT, accounting for the audible booms heard.
Numerous individuals from various states shared on social media their experiences of buildings shaking, while videos on the X platform captured the distinct sounds of the dual booms without any visible signs of fire or smoke. Some individuals reported the shaking to the U.S. Geological Survey, which registered the tremors with the National Earthquake Information Center. Despite the high number of reports on the USGS website’s “Did you feel it?” section, no seismic event was detected by the agency’s seismographs, ruling out an earthquake as the cause of the vibrations.
