A mysterious boom heard across New England yesterday was a meteor entering the earth's atmosphere, say scientists. The rocky visitor came in off the coast of Massachussets and was large enough to create a loud shockwave as it disintegrated over Cape Cod Bay. There were no reports of pieces finding their way to the ground. Though about 15,000 tons of material finds its way to planet Earth annually from space, most of it vaporizes in the mesosphere and less than 10 tons of it ends up as a meteorite on the ground.
NBC10 meteorologist Pamela Gardner says it was likely a meteorite entering and exploding in our atmosphere. "There's a satellite lighting detection around Boston – but no lightning! No earthquakes on USGS either," Gardner said. NBC10 Boston chief meteorologist Pete Bouchard also weighed in, saying the boom was, indeed, a meteor.
The boom was heard as far afield as Delaware and Montreal. Some saw a fireball—the meteor burning up miles overhead. NASA later confirmed what newsroom weather experts already knew, and released imagery showing where the meteor registered as lightning.
a fireball over New England at 2:06 p.m. Initial information put the fireball's speed at roughly 75,000 mph, and it appears to have fragmented at an altitude of 40 miles above extreme northeast Massachusetts/southeast New Hampshire.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security posted that there were no reports of damage or injury: "…there are no known emergency police or fire requests connected to these reports and we do not believe there is any public safety threat," it posted to social media.
Within an hour of the boom, police in Needham, Massachussets, asked residents to stop calling 911.
FOLKS. Please stop calling 911 and the non-emergency number unless you need police services. We have no information at this time and phone lines are being tied up with actual calls for service.
Yes, we think that was an earthquake…or maybe a sonic boom. Either way, we are over today.
