NASA Traces Rhode Meteor Over Cape Cod Bay to 300 Tons

A rhode meteor blazed through the atmosphere on Saturday afternoon and splashed into Cape Cod Bay, sending a sonic boom across New England. NASA and the American Meteor Society later used satellite and radar imagery to reconstruct the event, which they traced to a bolide about three feet wide.

NASA and Radar Clues

The analysis put the meteor at about 75,000 miles per hour and tied its energy release to about 300 tons of exploding dynamite. Satellites caught the flash as it burned up and disintegrated, while local radar picked up a debris signature closer to the surface.

That combination gave researchers a better picture of what passed overhead than any single report could. The meteor entered at a near 90-degree angle, which helped explain the sharp descent over the Massachusetts coast.

Cape Cod Bay Debris

One complication remains in the water itself. Radar suggests there is a good chance that a meteorite or pieces of space rock are somewhere at the bottom of Cape Cod Bay, after the object fell into the bay rather than landing on shore.

The event was unusual enough to draw notice because sonic booms from meteors usually occur much higher in the atmosphere, even though meteors of this size pass through Earth’s atmosphere a couple of times per year. The meteor may have been part of the Eta Aquarids meteor shower, the debris field left behind by Halley’s Comet.

The reader takeaway is simple: the flash is over, but the object was still large and fast enough to leave a debris trail that may now rest under Cape Cod Bay.