Witnesses in New England, Canada report fireball in sky
Multiple witnesses in New England and Canada reported a fireball streaking across the night sky on Sunday, with some even reporting a boom or cracking sound.
According to WMUR9, a Manchester, N.H. TV station, security footage from Burlington International Airport in Vermont captured the meteor around 5:38 p.m. and later over 100 reports from people in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Canada were made to the American Meteor Society.
According to NASA, the meteor, mostly likely a part of a larger asteroid, entered the atmosphere above Vermont and traveled at 42,000 mph before it broke up over the northern part of the state, while visible from Quebec, with the force of about 440 pounds of TNT, resulting in the noise.
The object itself was about the size of a bowling ball, according to researchers.
“The space rock fragmented violently, producing a pressure wave that rattled buildings and generated the sound heard by those near the trajectory. Such a pressure wave can also couple into the ground, causing minor “tremors” that can be picked up by seismic instruments in the area; the wave itself can be detected by infrasound (low frequency sound that can travel great distances) stations,” NASA said later on Facebook.
“It was dusk, so the sky was a deep blue, and I saw a bright red, orange and yellow streak to the north of me,” an eyewitness in Massachusetts wrote under the first NASA Facebook post. “I thought it must have been something much bigger than a standard ‘shooting star’ to be so visible when not totally dark yet.”
Around 50 tons of meteor material enters the atmosphere and burns up quickly every day without incident, according to researchers.
