Massive boom over northeastern US was a meteor explosion as powerful as 300 tons of TNT, NASA confirms

A meteor explodes in the atmosphere as seen by GOES-19 weather satellite's Geostationary Lightning Mapper instrument (inset) and a bright meteor streaks through the sky above Mechanicville, New York (main).

(Image credit: CIRA/NOAA/American Meteor Society)

A sonic boom heard throughout the northeastern United States last week was caused by a meteor, NASA confirmed after consulting satellite imagery.The meteor's boom, heard widely on Saturday (May 30) at 2:06 p.m. EDT (local time), was audible over the northeastern U.S. NASA made the determination that it was a meteor based on both eyewitness reports to the American Meteor Society as well as images from the GOES-19 satellite from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."The meteor appears to have fragmented at an altitude of 40 miles over northeast MA and southeast NH," NASA officials wrote on X on Sunday (May 31). "The energy released at breakup is estimated to be equivalent to about 300 tons of TNT, which accounts for the loud noise."Sometimes meteors are associated with meteor showers, or annual clusters of visible meteors associated with the Earth passing through the dust stream of a comet or asteroid. The May 30 event was not one of those, NASA noted.The GOES-19 geostationary lightning mapper captured the meteor's flash, added the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere based at Colorado State University in a separate X post on Saturday with imagery of the event.A bolide exploded high above New England in Earth's atmosphere on Saturday afternoon, creating a loud booming noise that was heard across the region.The flash of the exploding meteor was detected from the GOES-19 weather satellite's GLM instrument. pic.twitter.com/QHP2FWCucZMay 31, 2026NBC News also captured video footage of the daytime event, noting the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said safety officials received reports of an "audible boom" as well as shaking in the state's eastern area.Meanwhile, video shared to the American Meteor Society by R. Schott shows the fireball streaking through the daytime sky as its boom can be heard: