An apparent meteor passing through the atmosphere just east of Boston caused a loud boom heard over multiple areas of Massachusetts around 2 p.m. on Saturday, according to Ken Mahan, lead meteorologist for the Boston Globe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bolide meteor, which is essentially a fireball,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cThese are large and often spark a sonic boom when passing through the atmosphere with speeds faster than the sound barrier and air compressing ahead of the meteor as it races through, generating a massive pressure wave.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe average size bolide meteor sits at 1-2 meters,\u201d he added. \u201cNASA will ultimately estimate the size of this meteor in the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a post on X Saturday, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said \u201cthere are no known emergency police or fire requests connected to\u201d reports of the sonic boom caused by the apparent meteor.<\/p>\n
The agency did not confirm that the boom was caused by a meteor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain in contact with our local, state, and federal partners to monitor any impact and understand the cause when it becomes available,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
John Ebel, a senior research scientist at Weston Observatory in Boston College, said in a phone interview Saturday that if not for heavy cloud cover, a fireball might have been visible over the Massachusetts coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must have gotten pretty far into the atmosphere,\u201d he said, adding that sound waves from meteors entering the upper atmosphere usually dissipate by the time they reach the ground.<\/p>\n
Ebel said an earthquake couldn\u2019t have caused the sound because atmospheric pressure waves, which come from the sky, were much stronger than seismic signals he detected on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy automated system for detecting earthquakes didn\u2019t trigger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mahan said small meteors enter the atmosphere all the time, but typically don\u2019t make a sound as loud as the one heard Saturday afternoon. <\/p>\n
The apparent meteor \u201chad to be much larger and traveling faster than normal meteors to make a sound this loud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
James Ryan, a professor emeritus of physics and a researcher at the Space Science Center at the University of New Hampshire, said satellite imagery of the shockwave is \u201cconsistent with a good-sized meteor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMeteors cast a very wide range of sonic booms,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n