Huge booms reported as meteor travelling at 75,000mph shakes US buildings | US News

A meteor travelling at 75,000mph caused a double boom that shook buildings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the US on Saturday afternoon.

NASA confirmed the fireball shot over New England at just after 2pm EDT.

The space agency said the energy released at breakup was estimated to be equivalent to about 300 tonnes of TNT.

“It appears to have fragmented at an altitude of 40 miles above extreme northeast Massachusetts/southeast New Hampshire,” NASA said in a statement.

The American Meteor Society (AMS) said the booms were caused by a meteor about 3ft (nearly 1 metre) wide.

The fireball isn’t associated with any currently active meteor shower, and is a natural object and not a re-entry of space debris or a satellite, NASA said.

Reports of an explosion from people across New England on Saturday afternoon sent police and agencies scrambling to understand what had caused the double boom.

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People in a handful of states posted on social media about feeling the buildings they were in shaking.

Several videos posted on X captured what sounded like two quick booms, with no fire or smoke visible.

AMS programme monitor Robert Lunsford said the group received dozens of reports from Delaware to Montreal, with people either hearing the double boom, feeling the ground shake, or witnessing the fireball – which he said looked like a shooting star in the daytime sky.

“It was definitely bigger than a normal fireball, about a yard wide,” he said.

But Mr Lunsford said it was unlikely the meteor struck the ground.

Several people filed reports with the US Geological Survey, registering the shaking they felt with the National Earthquake Information Center, agency spokesman Steve Sobie said.