Elephant-sized meteor shakes New England with a double whammy

According to NASA, the object was about 1.5 metres in diameter, weighed about as much as an elephant and entered the atmosphere at about 42,000 miles per hour - that's about 67,600 km/h. As it collapsed, it released energy equivalent to about 230 tonnes of TNT, which could have caused the loud pops.

Details

The event took place on Saturday, 30 May 2026. At first, residents in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other parts of New England began posting on social media that they heard a powerful rumble. Some thought a tree had fallen nearby, while others thought there had been an earthquake or explosion.

Later NASA reported that the cause was a meteor. It flew through the atmosphere about 26 miles - about 42 kilometres - and crashed high above the region. The agency estimates the fragments fell into Cape Cod Bay off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts.

NASA ARES also points out that radar data showed meteorite impacts in the Cape Cod Bay area. According to the agency, among the fragments could be both small pieces weighing about tens of grams and larger pieces weighing up to several kilograms.

It's important to distinguish the words here. While the object is flying in space, it is called a meteoroid. When it enters the atmosphere and glows, it is a meteor or a bolide. And if the pieces reach the surface of the Earth, they become meteorites.

The double bang that people heard is due to shock waves. When an object enters the atmosphere at great speed and collapses, it can create a sharp sonic pop - similar to an explosion. That's why people may have felt a tremor, even though there was no real earthquake.

The American Meteor Society received dozens of reports from eyewitnesses from Delaware to Montreal. People reported seeing a fireball, hearing pops, or feeling vibrations.

Why it matters

Such events are a reminder that Earth is constantly encountering small space objects. Most of them burn up in the atmosphere and go unnoticed, especially if it happens over the ocean, over a sparsely populated area, or during the day.

This meteor became noticeable not because it was a unique threat, but because it flew over a densely populated region and caused a loud sound. NASA explicitly notes: meteors are common, but they don't usually have such a large audience.

For scientists, such events are useful, too. If meteorite fragments can be tracked by radar or found on the ground, they provide material for studying the composition of small bodies in the solar system. In this case, the search is complicated by the fact that the fragments probably fell into the water of Cape Cod Bay.

Background

Meteors are often called "shooting stars," although they have nothing to do with stars. They are usually debris from asteroids or comets that enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up due to friction and heat.

Sometimes the object is large enough to disintegrate with a loud pop. Such bright and powerful meteors are called bolides. If the destruction is low or the energy is high enough, the sound can reach the ground and cause windows, walls, or cars to vibrate.

This is exactly what probably happened over New England. What people heard was not the "ground impact" but the effects of a space rock breaking up in the atmosphere.