NASA Meteor Watch: 'Daylight fireball over New York City' around time of reported booms, shakings

USGS says they manually checked and saw no signs of any earthquake.

Daniella Rodriguez

Jul 16, 2024, 5:13 PM

Updated 161 days ago

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NASA Meteor Watch says a daylight “fireball” passed over New York City Tuesday morning – around the same time residents in the city and New Jersey reported hearing booms and shaking.
According to the agency:
“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 38,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended at a steep angle of just 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan.”
It was not immediately clear if the meteor caused the booms and shaking – but the American Meteor Society said it was possible.
“When sounds are heard from a fireball, this indicates that some fragments survived down to the lower atmosphere and may have left small remnants of the original fireball on the ground,” it said.
Joseph Irace, of Oceanport, New Jersey, told News 12 that she was at the beach when she heard a loud boom.
“My wife and I looked at each other and said, 'Did you hear that?' We were trying to figure out what it was.”
News 12 obtained video that captured the "loud boom" that sparked immediate reaction on social media.
“You wouldn’t think it’d happen especially this time of the day, right?” said Stephanie, of Park Slope. “It’s usually at night, you see it falling like a shooting star, that’s awesome.”
News 12’s Daniella Rodriguez was at Sheepshead Bay with more.