NASA has said that a meteor soared above the Statue of Liberty and then disintegrated about 30 miles above Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday morning, July 16. Around 11:15, the space rock is said to have passed through the atmosphere over New York.
At the same time, several New Yorkers claimed they spotted a flash of fire streak across the sky. Some of them also felt the ground shaking.
At least 20 people across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut claimed they saw the spectacle in the sky. According to one person, the fireball illuminated green, yellow and white.
The eyewitness told the American Meteor Society that the speeding light lasted about 30 seconds. It then fragmented into three pieces.
NASA Meteor Watch explains the spectacle
NASA’s Meteor Watch said that the “daylight fireball” was first seen about 40 miles above New York Harbor’s Upper Bay, where the statue is located. NASA opened up about the spectacle in a Facebook post.
“Local media are reporting the sighting of a fireball and booms and shakings between 10 AM and noon Eastern Daylight Time today. There have also been a few reports filed on the American Meteor Society website, and that information has permitted a very crude determination of the trajectory of the meteor,” NASA Meteor Watch wrote.
{{/usCountry}}“Local media are reporting the sighting of a fireball and booms and shakings between 10 AM and noon Eastern Daylight Time today. There have also been a few reports filed on the American Meteor Society website, and that information has permitted a very crude determination of the trajectory of the meteor,” NASA Meteor Watch wrote.
{{/usCountry}}“Moving a bit east of North at 34,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended at a steep angle of just 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan,” the post added.
However, the post clarified that this “trajectory is very crude and uncertain; it is based on a few eyewitness accounts and there is no camera or satellite data currently available to refine the solution.” It also explained that “no meteorites were produced by this event.” The post added that possible “military activity in the vicinity” could have caused the “multiple shakings and sounds reported to the media.”
The US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center also received reports of shaking in the northeast New Jersey and Staten Island, New York area. However, it said that the shaking could not have been caused by an earthquake.
“An examination of the seismic data in the area showed no evidence of an earthquake,” the agency said in a statement, according to New York Post. “The USGS has no direct evidence of the source of the shaking. Past reports of shaking with no associated seismic signal have had atmospheric origins such as sonic booms or weather-related phenomena.”