A meteor crashed through Earth's atmosphere Tuesday (July 16) morning, creating loud booms that resounded over parts of New York City and New Jersey, NASA says.
Preliminary estimates initially suggested the meteor was traveling northeast and passed over the Statue of Liberty around 11:17 a.m. ET before disintegrating above midtown Manhattan. Those estimates, which were based on accounts of a fireball in the sky, booms and tremors, suggested the meteor entered Earth's atmosphere above Upper Bay and descended toward the city at speeds of about 34,000 mph (54,500 km/h).
But as people filed more reports of the event throughout the day, NASA updated the meteor's modeled trajectory. "We now have the meteor originating over New York City and moving west into New Jersey," representatives of NASA Meteor Watch wrote in a Facebook post. "Speed has bumped up a bit to 38,000 miles per hour [61,200 km/h]."
The meteor was small, likely no more than 1 foot (0.3 meters) in diameter, William Cooke, a meteoroid environment program manager at NASA, told ABC7 New York. It turned into a fireball due to the heat generated by its high speed, he said, adding that "you expect to see meteors at night [but] not during the day, so this is a rare daylight fireball."
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Footage of the fireball was shared by a resident in Northford, Connecticut, to the American Meteor Society. The video shows a short white streak zipping across blue skies.
The fireball produced no meteorites, according to ABC7 New York — meaning no fragments of the space rock reached the ground — and there were no reports of damage or injuries related to the event.
While some people saw the fireball firsthand, others only heard a booming sound. Residents of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and northern New Jersey noticed a loud rumbling accompanied by shaking, ABC7 New York reported. "The golden retriever jumped out of his skin and the cat just darted under the sofa," Steven Bradley, from Park Ridge in New Jersey, told the broadcaster.
High temperatures on Tuesday morning may have helped the sound from the meteor travel farther than expected, meteorologists told ABC7 New York. Sound waves move more quickly through warm air than cold air because air molecules at higher temperatures have more energy and vibrate faster.
But the loud boom may have come from a completely unrelated source, such as military activities that were happening at the same time in New Jersey, Cooke said.
