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A fireball crossed the New England night sky on Sunday, releasing the energy of approximately 440 pounds of TNT.
NASA Meteor Watch reported Monday that when residents witnessed the meteor spreading over Vermont and Massachusetts, the space rock “violently fragmented, producing a pressure wave that shook buildings and generated the sound heard by people close to the path.
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Although the agency initially believed the meteor – which was likely an asteroid fragment – was moving at a speed of 47,000 miles per hour when it appeared around 5:38 p.m. ET, further analysis slowed that rate to 42 000 miles per hour.
NASA Meteor Watch first reported that the meteor was visible 52 miles above Green Mountain State’s Mount Mansfield State Forest and moved northeast as it passed through 33 miles through the upper atmosphere until it burns 33 miles above Beach Hill.
“As the object … penetrated deeper into the atmosphere, pressure built up on its forehead as a partial vacuum formed behind it. About 30 miles higher, the difference of pressure between the front and the rear exceeded its structural strength, “wrote NASA Meteor Watch.
In addition, the pressure wave experienced after its fragmentation could cause minor tremors and be detected by infrasound stations.
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“In last night’s case, we got infrasound measurements from three nearby stations – the amplitudes and durations of the signals put the energy of the fireball’s fragmentation at 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of TNT “the government organization wrote. “We can combine this energy with speed to get the mass and size of the object – 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) and 6 inches (15 centimeters) in diameter.”
More than 100 reports have been made to the American Meteor Society of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Canada, according to WMUR.
In a video of the incident posted by Twitter user Jeremy LaClair, the fireball was captured on a webcam at Burlington International Airport, with other witnesses ringing the bell with their own accounts.
Even more people commented on NASA’s Facebook post and user Shannon Lemley-Willis wrote that she heard the “boom” in Johnson, Vermont.
“The kids were playing outside and described it as ‘big trucks crashing’,” she writes.
“I didn’t get a video, but I certainly saw it in Watertown, MA. It was twilight, so the sky was fading a deeper blue, and I saw a red, orange streak. and bright yellow north of me, “Dan Nystedt wrote. “I thought it had to be something much bigger than a standard ‘shooting star’ to be so visible when it wasn’t totally dark yet.”
A fireball is a meteor with a luminosity magnitude greater than -4, or the luminosity of the planet Venus in the morning or night sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
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Whereas a meteor is the trail of light seen when an asteroid or meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere, according to NASA. If an asteroid or meteoroid does not burn before impact, it is called a meteorite.
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