New York had an out-of-this-world experience on Tuesday that alarmed some residents, and dazzled stargazers.
A meteor flashed through the atmosphere and disintegrated well above Midtown Manhattan at about 11:17 a.m. on July 16. The space rock burned up in the atmosphere, producing a fireball in the process. A boom and shaking were also reported at around the same time in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island — though it is not certain if that was related to the meteor.
It took a few hours to figure out what all the fuss was about when NASA Meteor Watch published a preliminary report about the incident on its Facebook page at about 5 p.m. Tuesday.
According to the Meteor Watch report, the meteor was first believed to have been sighted about 49 miles above Upper New York Bay, and burned up as it hurtled toward the earth while traveling at an estimated 34,000 mph (or about 1,700 times faster than the city’s 20 mph speed limit).
The space rock descended rapidly as it whizzed far above New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty, then disintegrated over Midtown Manhattan, some 29 miles north of the surface. As a result, no meteorites appeared to have been produced by this cosmic event.
Aries Dela Cruz of New York City’s Emergency Management department posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the agency had not received any reports of injuries or damage related to the event.
As for the boom, NASA Meteor Watch stated that there had been reports of military activity in the area around the same time as the fireball occurred, “which would explain the multiple shaking and sounds reported to the media.” The U.S. Geological Survey did not report any earthquakes at that moment, according to WABC-TV.
Tuesday’s meteor was the latest meteorological anomaly to impact New York this year.
In early April, New Yorkers were rattled by two unusually strong earthquakes along the Ramapo Fault in northern New Jersey measuring 4.8 and 4.0 on the Richter scale. It shook up buildings across the Five Boroughs, but did not cause any major damage or injuries.
The tremors occurred several days before the April 8 solar eclipse over much of the northeastern United States. Millions of New Yorkers were dazzled by the cosmic spectacle, in which 90% of the sun was blocked out by the moon in the middle of the afternoon. New York won’t see another eclipse like that for another 24 years.
