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Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

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Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#81
post #64
post #24

I have a Birdweather puck ( https://birdweather.com ) that listens for birds in our backyard in suburban Boston. It also measures sound pressure level (30 second sample rate). Our puck showed a 90.8dB sound level compared to a 55dB baseline. We thought a tree had hit the house because of the double boom. That was a repeated observation across all the local social media groups. The local UPS driver, who was outside at…

There was an identical event two weeks ago up the coast in Prince Edward Island. We didn’t get the NASA follow-up and treatment however. https://www.reddit.com/r/PEI/comments/1tgzjie/loud_bang_4pm/

Can you imagine, just by extrapolation, how many must hit the open ocean that are never seen nor heard?

Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#84
post #3

PSA: meteors have nothing to do with explosions. The shockwave comes from meteor's movement alone, the parts never move apart with any speed comparable to their common forward motion. A breakup will increase surface area and therefore kinetic energy to shockwave transfer efficiency, still not an explosion.

Without disagreeing with you, what should the event be called?

Breakup, impact, fly-by? all those could be incorrect if all you know is a space object entered the atmosphere, made a sound, and flashed some light. What do you call that? Especially because you don't automatically know if it impacted the surface. At which point it becomes a meteorite, so even calling it a meteor is not fully correct. Or do you get ultra technical and say that when it made the sound and flash, it had not yet reached the ground, therefore it was a meteor at the time?

Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#85
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an identical event two weeks ago up the coast in Prince Edward Island. We didn’t get the NASA follow-up and treatment however. https://www.reddit.com/r/PEI/comments/1tgzjie/loud_bang_4pm/

Can you imagine, just by extrapolation, how many must hit the open ocean that are never seen nor heard?

We could simply be moving through a less quiescent region of space, and this does represent a genuine up tick.

Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#86
It's just earlier this week we have an HN front-page news on the sophisticated Rubin telescope [1].

According to its Wikipedia entry, "Rubin is expected to catalog millions of supernovae, more than five million asteroids (including ~100,000 near-Earth objects), and image approximately 17 billion stars and 20 billion galaxies." [2]

I guess this this reported meteor is the one that got away, or perhaps it's beyond its scope of monitoring the Southern sky. But even if it's monitoring the Northern hemisphere it will most probably going to miss it due to the puny size of the meteor, more like a small tent instead of a skyscrapper.

>The meteor was about five feet wide, according to the space agency, with a mass of 5.6 metric tons (that's about the weight of a large elephant.)

[1] Rubin Tracks Skyscraper-Size Asteroids and Failed Supernovas:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352500

[2] Vera C. Rubin Observatory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_C._Rubin_Observatory

Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#87
post #66

Apparently it fell into the water. Maybe it can be recovered and made into the second coolest rock exhibit in Massachusetts (first is Plymouth Rock obviously).

This time Malcolm X’s line about “Plymouth Rock landed on us” would apply to everyone. And Plymouth Rock is very much not cool. It’s the anticlimax of a million school field trips.

Plymouth Rock is one of the greatest pranks ever played. There‘s so much history in the region—the story of the founding of this massive country—and the capstone is this “world’s largest ball of twine” level attraction. Brilliant.

Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interesting this also happened in South Carolina and Ohio within the past few months. Sounds like the beginning of an alien invasion movie. Sleeper ships buried themselves into every state. Waiting for the mother ship to arrive.

> Interesting this also happened in South Carolina and Ohio within the past few months. Not that interesting, apparently this scale of meteor happens on average multiple times a year, just not usually over such an urban area. The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor (1) was larger and caused ground damage and injuries from e.g. flying glass from broken windows. > Sounds like the beginning of an alien invasion movie. Sleeper ships…

I think it's pretty interesting when something happens that rarely occurs in a populated area.

Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#89
post #24

I have a Birdweather puck ( https://birdweather.com ) that listens for birds in our backyard in suburban Boston. It also measures sound pressure level (30 second sample rate). Our puck showed a 90.8dB sound level compared to a 55dB baseline. We thought a tree had hit the house because of the double boom. That was a repeated observation across all the local social media groups. The local UPS driver, who was outside at…

Okay that thing is cool. I made my own a while back with Pi 4 running https://www.birdweather.com/birdnetpi and I made my own fancy microphones with solder and a fuzzy cover. Worked amazingly well.

Re: Meteor Explodes over Massachusetts

#90
post #24

I have a Birdweather puck ( https://birdweather.com ) that listens for birds in our backyard in suburban Boston. It also measures sound pressure level (30 second sample rate). Our puck showed a 90.8dB sound level compared to a 55dB baseline. We thought a tree had hit the house because of the double boom. That was a repeated observation across all the local social media groups. The local UPS driver, who was outside at…

I was in the Financial District in NYC when this happened in 2024: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/17/mete...

I thought it was the firing of replica cannons or something similar in the Harbor, but was definitely loud enough that people took notice.

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