In something out of a Superman origin story, a meteorite recently exploded over New England. The space rock created a massive explosion before hurtling toward the middle of Cape Cod Bay. Don't worry; so far, we haven't seen a man wearing blue and red flying around. No one has been seen shooting lasers out of their eyes, either.
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Following the incident, NASA provided somewhat of an update via social media.
Eyewitnesses in New England and
"Eyewitnesses in New England and @NOAA's GOES-19 satellite reported a bright fireball on Saturday, May 30, at 2:06 p.m EDT accompanied by a loud noise," NASA wrote on X. "The meteor appears to have fragmented at an altitude of 40 miles over northeast MA and southeast NH. The energy released at breakup is estimated to be equivalent to about 300 tons of TNT, which accounts for the loud noise."
The meteorite is potentially attracted to a strong magnet. As such, there may be an opportunity to recover the space rock. Of course, that would mean being able to run tests on it to see what we can learn. After all, how often does a rock of that size survive entering the atmosphere?
"Most meteorites are strongly attracted to a magnet, and these ones are within reach of a 100? length of rope dangled off of a boat. In case anyone is interested in such factoids," NASA said.
Social Media Reacted to the Meteor Strike
Following NASA's update, social media users began to react to the meteorite. They specifically shared frustration at the lack of warning provided by any respective space agency.
"It's good to know that we will have zero advance warning when a big one hits us," one user wrote.
Another user reacted to NASA's post by stating that it's far more important to know there will be a meteor before it actually enters the Earth's atmosphere.
"I think I speak for a lot of people when I say... we'd prefer to know ahead of time, not four hours after the fact," the user noted, before joking that, "If it's greater than 140 meters, I don't want to know in advance."
Meteorites are commonplace; however, they usually burn up as they enter the atmosphere. Nevertheless, the explosion over New England was certainly a scary experience.
Thankfully, it wasn't something that ended in catastrophe.
