Large meteor enters Earth's atmosphere creating sonic boom, intense flash

The images of a large meteor have surfaced on social media that showed an intense flash that lit up the afternoon sky and created a sonic boom that shook the ground.

Residents of different cities in the northeastern United States and southern Ontario have witnessed the large meteor on Wednesday and posted its images on social media.

The satellite imagery showing the meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere over central New York State in the region that lies between Rochester and Syracuse was released by NASA officials.

150 sightings from residents were reported who saw the fireball over parts of Maryland; Washington, DC; Virginia, Pennsylvania; New York; Ontario; and Michigan, according to the American Meteor Society.

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The head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, Bill Cooke, told NBC News that the meteor was travelling west at 56,000mph at around 12:08 pm Eastern time when it entered our atmosphere. It then broke into pieces some 22 miles above the surface of the Earth over Central New York, creating a sonic boom.

Emergency dispatchers in Onondaga County, which includes Syracuse, said they received multiple 911 calls from alarmed residents who heard the boom, Dailymail UK reported.

WTSM-TV reported that locals from nearby Oswego and Madison Counties made similar reports.

 

Bekka Gunner was out dog sledding in Royalton, a town in Niagara County just east of Buffalo on Wednesday afternoon when she accidentally captured the image of the meteor on her cell phone.

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‘Actually, my phone was out because I was trying to record swans because there are swans in the swamps right now,’ Gunner told WGRZ-TV.

After she tried to record the swans, she then aimed her phone back in the direction of the sled team. That’s when she saw the strange object in the sky.

‘What I thought I saw was a kite, it looked like someone had let their kite go,’ she said.

‘It kind of looked angular, purple and greenish just like shiny looking thing and then before you blink an eye it’s gone.’

On social media, Twitter users from Central and Western New York posted messages saying the noise was so loud their houses shook.

A woman named Heidi tweeted: ‘House shook in Clay – super loud noise that made me think something landed on my roof!’

‘In the city of Syracuse and I heard it. Thought something fell on my house!’ tweeted Syracuse resident Mary Wasilewski.

Heather Trovato, a resident of nearby Liverpool, New York, tweeted that the noise was ‘so loud and scary’ that she ‘thought a tree fell on my house. Literally shook the whole house.’