A meteor traveling at tens of thousands of miles an hour triggered a loud boom and ground shaking that were felt across Massachusetts on Saturday afternoon.
NASA confirmed a fireball, meaning a bright meteor, passed over the state at 2:06 p.m. at an estimated speed of 75,000 mph, releasing what it said was the equivalent of about 300 tons of TNT upon breakup.
“It appears to have fragmented at an altitude of 40 miles above extreme northeast Massachusetts/southeast New Hampshire,” NASA said in a statement.
The fireball isn’t associated with an active meteor shower, NASA said, describing the phenomenon as “a natural object and not a re-entry of space debris or a satellite.”
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said public safety officials received reports of “an audible boom” and tremors in the eastern part of the state. The agency said there were no known emergency police or fire requests connected to the reports.
The U.S. Geological Survey described the event as a “widely felt sonic boom from a suspected bolide.”
“Unlike earthquakes which occur at discrete location in the earth, sonic boom events occur along a linear path in the atmosphere,” it said.
There was no earthquake, and nothing made impact with the ground, the USGS said.
