A five-foot rock hit the atmosphere at 42,000 mph, exploded with the force of 230 tons of TNT, shook buildings across two countries, and injured nobody. Honestly impressive failure rate.
NASA says the thing weighed 5.6 metric tons before it came apart 31 miles over Cape Cod at 2:06 p.m. Saturday. The sonic boom rattled windows in multiple states. A guy in Connecticut reportedly thought his water heater finally gave up. According to the Northeastern Bureau of Loud Outdoor Noises, 71.3% of witnesses assumed it was a truck.
This is the part I respect: a rock the size of a loveseat travels across the solar system for who knows how long, picks one Saturday afternoon, picks New England, and the worst outcome is some debris on a beach already covered in debris. Cosmic precision wasted on a parking lot.
NASA notes these small meteors are nearly impossible to track and almost never survive reentry, which is their polite way of saying they don't matter. The real threat is the 460-foot "city-killers," of which several thousand remain undiscovered. I won't be around for that follow-up, but I assume the press release will be shorter.
Meanwhile a meteor punched through a Texas roof in March. The family filed an insurance claim under "act of sky."
Based on the original article "NASA confirms fireball meteor exploded over northeastern US with force of 230 tons of TNT".
