May 31 - Residents across parts of New England reported seeing a bright fireball and hearing a pronounced boom on Saturday afternoon after a meteor broke apart high in the atmosphere, according to NASA's assessment of satellite imagery.
The event was observed at approximately 2:06 p.m. EDT (1806 GMT) and registered both in eyewitness reports and on NOAA's GOES-19 satellite, NASA said in a post on X. The agency reported that the space rock fragmented at an altitude of about 40 miles (64 km) above northeastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire.
NASA provided an energy estimate for the breakup, saying the explosion in the atmosphere released energy equivalent to roughly 300 tons of TNT. That energy release, the agency said, helps account for the loud noise heard across the region.
Meteorites and meteors move at speeds exceeding the speed of sound when they enter the atmosphere. As they heat, ablate, and sometimes disintegrate, they generate pressure waves. When those waves reach the ground they can register as a sonic boom - a sudden, often loud sound which many people in the affected area reported on Saturday.
Local reports of the bright streak and accompanying noise were consistent with the satellite detections referenced by NASA. The agency relied on satellite imagery to locate the fragmentation point and to estimate the energy released at breakup, details that underpin the explanation for why a boom was audible across a wide area.
At this stage the publicly available information centers on the satellite observations and eyewitness accounts cited by NASA. The agency's posting on X supplied the core details: timing, approximate altitude of fragmentation, the geographic area beneath the breakup, and the estimated energy equivalence used to explain the audible phenomenon.
Context and implications
The mechanics described by NASA - high-altitude fragmentation and the conversion of kinetic energy into pressure waves - are the basis for the reported boom. The combination of satellite data and multiple eyewitness reports formed the basis of the agency's summary of the incident.
Further official updates would be required to expand on any on-the-ground effects or additional measurements beyond what NASA cited in its satellite-based assessment.