NEW YORK (WABC) — Could a meteor be the cause of a loud boom that was heard in parts of New York City and northern New Jersey?
New York City officials began checking out reports in Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens of a loud noise heard Tuesday morning. There were also similar reports in New Jersey.
New York City Emergency Management Department received an update from NASA, who estimated that a meteor entered the atmosphere and disintegrated above the New York City metropolitan area earlier on Tuesday.
Preliminary analysis indicates the meteor passed over the Statue of Liberty before fragmenting high above midtown Manhattan. No meteorites were produced by the event.
Emergency Management says they received no reports of damage or injuries related to this event.
The American Meteor Society of amateur spotters listed up to 20 possible sightings between 11:16 and 11:20 a.m.
Lee Goldberg has the latest on the loud boom.
“Based on this data, we estimate that the fireball was first sighted at an altitude of 49 miles above Upper Bay (east of Greenville Yard). Moving a bit east of north at 34,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended at a steep angle of 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan,” said Bill Cooke, lead for NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office.
Chief Meteorologist Lee Goldberg said the heat and high temperatures could have helped the sound travel.
There was a tiny inversion — where temperature increases with height — on Tuesday morning which may have helped the sound travel further. Sound waves do in fact travel faster in warm air than in cold air, which can make sound louder.
Air molecules at higher temperatures have more energy and vibrate faster, allowing sound waves to move more quickly.
Judah Bergman told Eyewitness News he was working at his desk in Lakewood when he saw the fireball shoot across the sky.
“It was long and really, really fast,” he said. “It looked like a flaming, long rod or something on fire and flying through the sky.”
Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office said the fireball was a small meteor, about a foot across, traveling at 34,000 miles an hour.
“Something when it’s moving that fast it heats up,” he said. “You expect to see meteors at night not during the day, so this was a rare daylight fireball.”
Cooke said it’s not entirely clear if the loud booms people heard at the time they saw the fireball was from the fireball itself or from military activities happening simultaneously in New Jersey.
“So, if the fireball produced a boom it’s kind of lost in all the stuff generated by military activity to your south,” he said.
Steven Bradley, of Park Ridge, recalled hearing the boom.
“Then, less than a second after that, there was a tremble of the house as if something had hit my roof,” he said.
Bradley said the sound and rumbling was enough to scare his pets.
“The golden retriever jumped out of his skin and the cat just darted under the sofa,” he said.
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