Event: 20240716-151500

Local media are reporting the sighting of a fireball and booms and shakings between 10 AM and noon Eastern Daylight Time today (July 16, 2024). There have also been a few reports filed on the American Meteor Society website, and that information has permitted a very crude determination of the trajectory of the meteor. Based on this data, we estimate that the fireball was first sighted at an altitude of 49 miles above Upper Bay (east of Greenville Yard). Moving a bit east of North at 34,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended at a steep angle of just 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan.

Some important points:

1) This trajectory is very crude and uncertain; it is based on a few eyewitness accounts and there is no camera or satellite data currently available to refine the solution.
2) No meteorites were produced by this event.
3) There are reports of supersonic aircraft in the vicinity around the time of the fireball, which would explain the multiple shakings and sounds reported to the media.

---

Event Data