At noon, July 16, New Yorkers witnessed an unusual sight in the form of a fireball that streaked across the sky. According to scientists, it was a bolide created when a small celestial body entered the atmosphere.
According to eyewitnesses, the fireball flew from the Statue of Liberty to the center of Manhattan. One witness described the falling star as illuminated with green, yellow and white colors. The unusual spectacle lasted about 30 seconds before the object split into three parts. The event was accompanied by the distant sound of an explosion and a slight shaking of the ground.
Based on eyewitness reports of the event collected by the American Meteor Society, researchers from NASA have reconstructed a rough picture of what happened. New Yorkers witnessed the fall of a very bright meteor (bolide). It was first noticed when it was at an altitude of about 80 km. The celestial body that spawned it entered the atmosphere over Manhattan and traveled westward toward New Jersey. Its velocity was 17 km/s. Then the object disintegrated at an altitude of 55 km.
According to scientists, rocks capable of creating such a bolide are only about 30 centimeters in diameter. Because they are so small, they are virtually impossible to detect in advance and are completely destroyed in the atmosphere. Therefore, researchers consider it unlikely that some debris from the celestial visitor could have reached the Earth’s surface.
As for the reports of ground shaking, the U.S. Geological Survey examined seismic data and found no evidence of an earthquake. According to experts, previous reports of quakes that were not accompanied by seismic signals were of atmospheric origin. These could have been sonic booms generated when a military aircraft crosses the sound barrier, or weather phenomena. NASA suggests that reports of tremors and explosion sounds may be related to reports of military activity in the region at the time of the bolide’s appearance.
You may also be interested in our article on how Jupiter experienced a grand comet bombardment in 1994.
