I’m around 8 miles west of Boston. I was playing on the floor with my daughter and had my ear to the ground- suddenly heard all of the windows shaking, the floor rumbled and an explosion louder than I’ve ever heard before.
Honestly what spooked me the most was seeing nothing on the horizon to help explain it! I am shocked and grateful it didn’t break any windows or cause further damage.
I'm in Watertown on a busy road and was near an open window when it exploded. I thought a truck had slammed into my building and was baffled when I saw everything was fine.
We should grab coffee sometime, neighbor!
Hah you're a Nick in Watertown too?
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 the time, said he "felt it in his chest".
Interesting this also happened in South Carolina and Ohio within the past few months.
The day was somewhat stormy. I was in my kitchen in my north-suburban-Boston house, when I suddenly heard a BOOM. I thought it was a very large branch falling on my house, so I ran outside to check out the roof. Saw nothing, and only later heard about the meteor.
A few years ago I heard a bang and my whole house shook. My roommate and I both thought a car had hit the house. Never did find out what caused it, I think it must have been a sonic boom, most likely a military aircraft. The way it shook the house though, it was hard to believe that something didn't hit the building.
We had a meteor 15 years ago or so. I happened to open the side door just as it was overhead. It looked like late afternoon by the light, but it was long after dark by the clock. I had just a moment to question both my watch and my sanity before it went dark again.
Similar, except I saw a bunch of our neighbors doing the same thing which told me it wasn't a branch or similar that would affect just our house.
I've never experienced this before so I figure we've witnessed something truly rare and special that might not happen again in our lifetimes.
Mentioned (in comments) several times a few days ago:
From the outer Cape it sounded like a long low rumble. I tought it was the wind making an unusual noise.
[deleted]
I didn't hear it in northern RI but all my friends heard it clearly. I feel left out
I heard it in Boston and with initial reports saying it broke up over Cape Cod I was kind of surprised and just assumed a very big kaboom. There was a strong storm with 30knt wind from the North at the time. It makes a lot more sense that the shockwave was produced North of here at the NH border and travelled with the wind and the remnants falling East of here in the Bay.
My kids heard it in Narragansett.
I was at a beachhouse north of Boston and I thought someone fell out of bed or dropped something really heavy upstairs. It was loud and the whole house shook. All of us were scouring the internet for like an hour, finding absolutely nothing "official" or any mention of it on news sites- just tons of subreddits and other social media blowing up all over the Northeast wondering what the heck it was.
I hate units of TNT. Ill do psi. Love the foot. The calorie is metric! But what on planet earth is "ton of TNT"?
The energy that was dissipated (using 0.5 mv^2) was 1TJ, or the 280 000 kWh.
It's the most common unit for describing the explosive yield of a nuclear weapon. So, it's a lot smaller than the bombs dropped on Japan in WWII, but a lot bigger than a Davy Crockett. That's a sort-of-useful frame of reference.
The only other things I can think of that would create a similar kind of blast are a volcanic eruption or something like that fertilizer explosion in Beirut in 2020 (~1100 tons TNT equivalent.)
TNT explosion unit is ACME friendly!... meep meep!
They probably need an "Equivalent football field lengths of burgers eliminated" to assist certain countries.
“Just outside of Boston,” you say? They were coming to get Avi Loeb.
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.
PSA: The word "explosion" has multiple definitions, plenty of which are actually quite reasonable to apply to meteors! It can refer to the sound alone, for example. The people reporting an explosion in Massachusetts were not incorrect!
It would however, be incorrect to claim that the meteor had noting to do with explosions.
None of the definitions I found are concerned with only sound. One mentions sound as a result of an explosion.
PSA: expressing an opinion (incorrect or otherwise) is not actually a public service announcement
No? There is no violent expansion or bursting, even if the sound is similar. It is as much an explosion as a supersonic jet passing by, and that is not much.
The term makes people think atmospheric heating causes an actual steam explosion and that's the source of shockwave, which can't be further from truth.
Do you not consider Tunguska an explosion? It’s always described as such. IIRC, it never even hit the ground. Sure, a lot of the damage was caused by the air being compressed from above, but it created an air burst, which would have released a lot of energy in every direction.
No, it's a misnomer as with any other meteor.
If you were to witness the breakup from the bolide's reference frame and without all the rushing air you'd never call it an explosion.
>The shockwave comes from meteor's movement alone, the parts never move apart with any speed comparable to their common forward motion..
jojobas and NASA's statements aren't contradictory.
NASA states: "the fragmentation of the fireball unleashes large amounts of energy, which also generates a pressure wave that can produce a very loud boom, even shaking houses."
Fragmentation of a fireball, whilst not explosive itself (the particles needn't diverge at a supersonic relative velocity) are nonetheless part of a supersonic / hypersonic particle field relative to the atmosphere they are passing through. Expanding the diameter of that particle field will increase the size of the resultant shockwave, whether the particle separation itself is "explosive" or not.
The "explosion" then is of the deceleration (aerobraking) shockwave, not the bolide separation. But the bolide separation increases the intensity of the shockwave, with more (and lighter) particles interacting with the atmosphere over a shorter distance than an intact, small-diameter bolide would.
Some of this depends on what definition of "explosion" one chooses, or whether people are intending an explosion specifically, or an explosive sound (sonic boom). That's confounded by bolide separation, the bright light emitted on entry, and sonic effects, all of which are semantically associated with other explosive events. Language is a consensus phenomenon.
I'd tend to call the event an explosion, though not in the expanding particle field sense.
Your statement is not supported by, and is somewhat at odds with, physics. As described in this source, observed terminal brightening/"burst" of a bolide is tied to the body's material behavior (fragmentation, rapid lateral expansion, ablation), and not to a free-standing "deceleration shockwave" that exists independently of the body breaking up.
I didn't state that the shockwave is independent of whether or not the body breaks up, I wrote, emphasised, "Expanding the diameter of that particle field will increase the size of the resultant shockwave, whether the particle separation itself is "explosive" or not."
Which your article (partially read, sorry, incredibly shitty reader) largely substantiates, largely in the itemised list in section 2.2. Pancaking of a bolide through fragmentation increases frontal area, has multiple points of mass interacting with the atmosphere over a larger area and with less mass at each point, and the (undiscussed) light-emission mechanism which itself largely derives from compressive heating and ionisation of the atmosphere (rather than friction against the atmosphere or heating of bolide particles themselves). Increasing the number, and surface areas, of particles increases the region and intensity of this effect.
As your source discusses, most fragmentation is a result of mechanical rather than thermal forcing of the bolide.
The Wikipedia article on "meteor air burst" has an explanation that basically matches yours, although they do use the word "explosion" to describe it. Which makes sense to me: whatever one chooses to call it, it's a nearly instantaneous spontaneous disassembly that is very bright, very hot, and very loud.
The speed scale for disassembly is nowhere near the forward speed; you never get anywhere close to 45 degree debris divergence angle. It's also, again, not the disassembly that causes it to be bright, hot and loud. Wikipedians can also be wrong.
We are not disassembling, we are assembling in another time direction.
You are correct in class 9 physics book in India we have a mention of supersonic planes producing a sonic "boom" so the suprsonic planes don't themselves explode but their fast movement makes the air produce the boom. So you were correct as far as I can tell. But meteors do get smaller and smaller due to extreme friction from air and they do break into several pieces so that can also add to the sound.
I’m around 8 miles west of Boston. I was playing on the floor with my daughter and had my ear to the ground- suddenly heard all of the windows shaking, the floor rumbled and an explosion louder than I’ve ever heard before.
Honestly what spooked me the most was seeing nothing on the horizon to help explain it! I am shocked and grateful it didn’t break any windows or cause further damage.
I'm in Watertown on a busy road and was near an open window when it exploded. I thought a truck had slammed into my building and was baffled when I saw everything was fine.
We should grab coffee sometime, neighbor!
Hah you're a Nick in Watertown too?
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 the time, said he "felt it in his chest".
Interesting this also happened in South Carolina and Ohio within the past few months.
The day was somewhat stormy. I was in my kitchen in my north-suburban-Boston house, when I suddenly heard a BOOM. I thought it was a very large branch falling on my house, so I ran outside to check out the roof. Saw nothing, and only later heard about the meteor.
A few years ago I heard a bang and my whole house shook. My roommate and I both thought a car had hit the house. Never did find out what caused it, I think it must have been a sonic boom, most likely a military aircraft. The way it shook the house though, it was hard to believe that something didn't hit the building.
We had a meteor 15 years ago or so. I happened to open the side door just as it was overhead. It looked like late afternoon by the light, but it was long after dark by the clock. I had just a moment to question both my watch and my sanity before it went dark again.
Similar, except I saw a bunch of our neighbors doing the same thing which told me it wasn't a branch or similar that would affect just our house.
I've never experienced this before so I figure we've witnessed something truly rare and special that might not happen again in our lifetimes.
Mentioned (in comments) several times a few days ago:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48354442>
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48341582>
0.00006 times the speed of light. Damn.
Even faster than https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
Saturday, May 30, 2026
From the outer Cape it sounded like a long low rumble. I tought it was the wind making an unusual noise.
I didn't hear it in northern RI but all my friends heard it clearly. I feel left out
I heard it in Boston and with initial reports saying it broke up over Cape Cod I was kind of surprised and just assumed a very big kaboom. There was a strong storm with 30knt wind from the North at the time. It makes a lot more sense that the shockwave was produced North of here at the NH border and travelled with the wind and the remnants falling East of here in the Bay.
My kids heard it in Narragansett.
I was at a beachhouse north of Boston and I thought someone fell out of bed or dropped something really heavy upstairs. It was loud and the whole house shook. All of us were scouring the internet for like an hour, finding absolutely nothing "official" or any mention of it on news sites- just tons of subreddits and other social media blowing up all over the Northeast wondering what the heck it was.
https://fireball.imo.net/members/imo_view/event/2026/3867
And here
https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/
[dead]
"230 tons of TNT"
I hate units of TNT. Ill do psi. Love the foot. The calorie is metric! But what on planet earth is "ton of TNT"?
The energy that was dissipated (using 0.5 mv^2) was 1TJ, or the 280 000 kWh.
It's the most common unit for describing the explosive yield of a nuclear weapon. So, it's a lot smaller than the bombs dropped on Japan in WWII, but a lot bigger than a Davy Crockett. That's a sort-of-useful frame of reference.
The only other things I can think of that would create a similar kind of blast are a volcanic eruption or something like that fertilizer explosion in Beirut in 2020 (~1100 tons TNT equivalent.)
TNT explosion unit is ACME friendly!... meep meep!
They probably need an "Equivalent football field lengths of burgers eliminated" to assist certain countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent
From now on I will use the gigacalorie for this kind of thing.
Probably just a UFO pickup gone bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSY4fEEg4j0
“Just outside of Boston,” you say? They were coming to get Avi Loeb.
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.
PSA: The word "explosion" has multiple definitions, plenty of which are actually quite reasonable to apply to meteors! It can refer to the sound alone, for example. The people reporting an explosion in Massachusetts were not incorrect!
It would however, be incorrect to claim that the meteor had noting to do with explosions.
None of the definitions I found are concerned with only sound. One mentions sound as a result of an explosion.
PSA: expressing an opinion (incorrect or otherwise) is not actually a public service announcement
No? There is no violent expansion or bursting, even if the sound is similar. It is as much an explosion as a supersonic jet passing by, and that is not much.
The term makes people think atmospheric heating causes an actual steam explosion and that's the source of shockwave, which can't be further from truth.
Do you not consider Tunguska an explosion? It’s always described as such. IIRC, it never even hit the ground. Sure, a lot of the damage was caused by the air being compressed from above, but it created an air burst, which would have released a lot of energy in every direction.
No, it's a misnomer as with any other meteor.
If you were to witness the breakup from the bolide's reference frame and without all the rushing air you'd never call it an explosion.
>The shockwave comes from meteor's movement alone, the parts never move apart with any speed comparable to their common forward motion..
PSA is false.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/watch-the-skies/2026/03/26/its-fi...
jojobas and NASA's statements aren't contradictory.
NASA states: "the fragmentation of the fireball unleashes large amounts of energy, which also generates a pressure wave that can produce a very loud boom, even shaking houses."
Fragmentation of a fireball, whilst not explosive itself (the particles needn't diverge at a supersonic relative velocity) are nonetheless part of a supersonic / hypersonic particle field relative to the atmosphere they are passing through. Expanding the diameter of that particle field will increase the size of the resultant shockwave, whether the particle separation itself is "explosive" or not.
The "explosion" then is of the deceleration (aerobraking) shockwave, not the bolide separation. But the bolide separation increases the intensity of the shockwave, with more (and lighter) particles interacting with the atmosphere over a shorter distance than an intact, small-diameter bolide would.
Some of this depends on what definition of "explosion" one chooses, or whether people are intending an explosion specifically, or an explosive sound (sonic boom). That's confounded by bolide separation, the bright light emitted on entry, and sonic effects, all of which are semantically associated with other explosive events. Language is a consensus phenomenon.
I'd tend to call the event an explosion, though not in the expanding particle field sense.
Your statement is not supported by, and is somewhat at odds with, physics. As described in this source, observed terminal brightening/"burst" of a bolide is tied to the body's material behavior (fragmentation, rapid lateral expansion, ablation), and not to a free-standing "deceleration shockwave" that exists independently of the body breaking up.
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2001ESASP.495..491R
You're being excessively argumentative.
I didn't state that the shockwave is independent of whether or not the body breaks up, I wrote, emphasised, "Expanding the diameter of that particle field will increase the size of the resultant shockwave, whether the particle separation itself is "explosive" or not."
Which your article (partially read, sorry, incredibly shitty reader) largely substantiates, largely in the itemised list in section 2.2. Pancaking of a bolide through fragmentation increases frontal area, has multiple points of mass interacting with the atmosphere over a larger area and with less mass at each point, and the (undiscussed) light-emission mechanism which itself largely derives from compressive heating and ionisation of the atmosphere (rather than friction against the atmosphere or heating of bolide particles themselves). Increasing the number, and surface areas, of particles increases the region and intensity of this effect.
As your source discusses, most fragmentation is a result of mechanical rather than thermal forcing of the bolide.
The Wikipedia article on "meteor air burst" has an explanation that basically matches yours, although they do use the word "explosion" to describe it. Which makes sense to me: whatever one chooses to call it, it's a nearly instantaneous spontaneous disassembly that is very bright, very hot, and very loud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_air_burst
The speed scale for disassembly is nowhere near the forward speed; you never get anywhere close to 45 degree debris divergence angle. It's also, again, not the disassembly that causes it to be bright, hot and loud. Wikipedians can also be wrong.
We are not disassembling, we are assembling in another time direction.
You are correct in class 9 physics book in India we have a mention of supersonic planes producing a sonic "boom" so the suprsonic planes don't themselves explode but their fast movement makes the air produce the boom. So you were correct as far as I can tell. But meteors do get smaller and smaller due to extreme friction from air and they do break into several pieces so that can also add to the sound.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/explosion