NASA reports that a 34,000-mile-per-hour meteor that screamed over the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor on Tuesday is burning above the city.
New Yorkers and even residents of nearby countries reported feeling a rumble like an earthquake and heard a loud ‘boom’ Tuesday morning – as a bright fireball plunging burned itself into oblivion approximately 29 miles above midtown Manhattan.
Many government agencies are working to identify mysterious explosions and rattling, including NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office and the United States National Earthquake Information Center (USGS).
But NASA notes there is evidence for an alternative explanation.
‘There were military reports in the vicinity around the time of the fireball,’ the space agency said, ‘which could explain the shaking and noise reported to the media.’
NASA reports that a 34,000-mile-per-hour meteor that screamed over the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor on Tuesday is burning above the city. New Yorkers and even residents of nearby states reported feeling what felt like an earthquake and hearing a loud ‘boom’.
But NASA notes there is evidence for an alternative explanation. ‘There were military reports around the time of the fireball,’ said the US space agency, ‘which could explain the shocks and noises reported to the media’
Despite NASA’s caveats, Pentagon officials told NBC New York that the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), or other US military sensor networks, did not track anything that could explain the witness reports.
Astronomer and head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, Bill Cooke, issued a statement on the limited facts about the event currently known.
According to Cooke, the cloud fireball was first seen at 11:17 local time near the Greenville Yard, a freight rail yard located at the Port of New York and New Jersey.
“The fireball was first seen 49 miles above Upper Bay (east of Greenville Yard),’ Cooke said.
‘The meteor descended at a steep angle of only 18 degrees from the vertical,’ he continued, ‘moving slightly east of North at a speed of 34,000 miles per hour.’
NASA officials thanked the amateur skywatchers with the American Meteor Society whose data ‘allowed the determination of meteor trajectories.’
Trackers with the nonprofit scientific group, founded in 1911, recorded 20 possible meteor sightings between 11:16 a.m. and 11:20 a.m. Reports of an unconfirmed public fireball spread across the tri-state area, from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut – and beyond to Delaware and Maryland.
‘It just caught my eye: a fireball just streaming through the sky,’ eyewitness Judah Bergman told local news. ‘I don’t believe it.’
Astronomer and head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, Bill Cooke, said the cloud fireball was first seen at 11:17 local time near Greenville Yard, a freight rail yard located at the Port of New York and New Jersey: ‘moving east. North at 34,000 miles an hour’
‘It just caught the eye: a fireball just streaming through the sky,’ eyewitness Judah Bergman told the local NBC news affiliate. ‘I don’t believe it.’ Above, an image from the 1998 film Armageddon, in which space rocks threaten Earth, including the city of New York.
Despite resident accounts of physical rattling and shaking along the path of the fireball – reportedly from northeastern New Jersey and Staten Island, New York – the USGS stated in an official statement that it recorded no evidence of an earthquake.
‘An examination of the seismic data in the area showed no evidence of an earthquake. The USGS has no direct evidence of the source of the tremors,” the federal agency’s National Earthquake Information Center said.
‘Past reports of shaking without an associated seismic signal have an atmospheric origin,’ the USGS advises, ‘such as sonic booms or weather phenomena.’
One explanation for the alleged or suspected loud and shaking meteor racket may come from unusually thick summer air.
As the chief meteorologist for local affiliate WABC-TV, Lee Goldberg, noted, the record heat this July will help the sound reverberate through the air.
During high temperature days, air molecules move faster and collide more often in a heated or ‘excited’ state – which allows the sound waves that ripple through these molecular collisions to propagate faster and more powerfully.
NASA officials cautioned that their own assessment of Tuesday’s fireball sighting is ‘uncertain’ and based only on ‘some eyewitness accounts.’
‘There is no camera or satellite data currently available to refine the solution,’ the space agency’s meteoroid office admits.
However, Cooke’s team at the NASA office promised to continue collecting information to confirm the witness’s report, in order to complete the investigation of the case.
No meteorite impact or landing, at least according to NASA, was produced by Tuesday’s event.
