Big Bada Boom

 

I’ve been asked about the large boom that occurred earlier today over eastern New England. So, I thought many of y’all likely had the same question….so here is my take on what is going on.

 Over the last few days, there have been several reports of sonic booms over the Eastern Seaboard. Two days ago in the late Thursday afternoon, there was a loud boom over South Carolina, that resulted in the ground shaking, across a large area.  Sonic booms are caused by a shock wave when an object passes the speed of sound, most sonic booms are caused by aircraft. The U.S. Geological Survey said this wasn’t the result of an earthquake and was caused by something in the atmosphere. Over South Carolina there were no eyewitness reports of a fireball and there were no satellite detections of a meteor at that time over the area. While it is still possible that this was caused by a large meteor, and no one saw it. It is more than likely the result of a military jet breaking the sound barrier.

To be considered a fireball, the meteor must be at least as bright as Venus. This exceptional brightness is usually a result of a large meteoroid - possibly a few meters in diameter upon entering Earth's atmosphere. When a large meteoroid explodes in the Earth’s atmosphere it is called a bolide.

This afternoon there was another sonic boom this one was over eastern Massachusetts. This was heard and felt across parts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. I heard of a report of a loud boom over Maine, but I don’t know if that is connected. Unlike the boom over South Carolina, this one was observed by the GOES 19 lightning detection mapper. Here is an image from the Satellite at the time of the sonic boom. The bright flash seen on the image wasn’t associated with the nor’easter off the Coast.

 

There were also reports of people seeing the meteor streak over parts of New York State.  So, the sonic boom that many heard was the result of a large meteoroid entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

There have been reports of sonic booms over other parts of the U.S. the last few days as well. I do know there were several small asteroids that made close approaches. It is possible that all of this is associated with other rocks from the same cluster.