{"id":471176,"date":"2026-06-01T20:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/471176\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T20:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:10:11","slug":"nasa-confirms-meteorite-landed-in-cape-cod-bay-after-sonic-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/471176\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA confirms meteorite landed in Cape Cod Bay after sonic boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLocal News\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNASA says the meteor responsible for Saturday\u2019s sonic boom released about as much energy as 300 tons of TNT as it broke into pieces 40 miles above New England.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\tSatellite and radar imagery capturing the meteor crashing into Cape Cod Bay. NOAA\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Abby Patkin<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 1, 2026 | 3:26 PM\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

2 minutes to read<\/p>\n

The meteor that caused a sonic boom heard throughout Massachusetts Saturday<\/a> released about as much energy as 300 tons of TNT<\/a> as it broke into pieces and landed squarely in the middle of Cape Cod Bay, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fall into water is technically called a \u2018fishy squisher\u2019 in uber-serious scientific terms,\u201d the agency said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NASA described the falling meteor as a bolide<\/a>, or an exceptionally bright type of fireball. The American Meteor Society logged more than 80 reports<\/a> from witnesses who described seeing or hearing the phenomenon as far away as Ontario, Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were driving on the highway and it just appeared out of nowhere and it looked like a missile falling or something,\u201d one person from Montville, New Jersey, wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another witness from Sharon, Vermont, said they spotted the \u201chighly brilliant fireball meteor\u201d through their windshield while cruising down Interstate 89.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bright, vivid orange color and looked exactly like a blazing object engulfed in flames crashing down,\u201d they wrote. \u201cBecause of my perspective driving forward on the highway, it created a strong optical illusion of falling straight down vertically into the distant tree line. Before disappearing from view, it looked like a rope of liquid lava. Brightest orange I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to NASA, the fireball fell around 2:06 p.m. and appears to have fragmented about 40 miles above the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire.\u00a0The meteorite pieces all landed in roughly 111 feet of water, the agency said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost meteorites are strongly attracted to a magnet, and these ones are within reach of a 100\u2032 length of rope dangled off of a boat,\u201d NASA pointed out. \u201cIn case anyone is interested in such factoids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original meteor was roughly 3 feet wide, or about the size of a large beach ball, and collided with Earth\u2019s atmospheric shield at 75,000 mph, according to meteorologists at 1 Degree Outside<\/a>. Still, the weather outlet suggested that Saturday\u2019s sonic boom doesn\u2019t mean Earth is at an increased risk of impact, as the atmosphere typically does an \u201cincredible job\u201d of burning up space debris before it can wreak havoc.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeteors are actually quite common,\u201d NASA concurred<\/a>. \u201cThey occur all the time, and fireballs can be seen on any given night. But they often occur over the ocean or unpopulated areas with no witnesses, or during the daytime, making them difficult to spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Profile\t<\/p>\n

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the Today newsletter<\/p>\n

Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local News NASA says the meteor responsible for Saturday\u2019s sonic boom released about as much energy as 300…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-471176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}