NASA Confirms 1,000 Pound Meteor Hitting Ground Caused Big Boom in Texas

NASA Confirms 1,000 Pound Meteor Hitting Ground Caused Big Boom in Texas

A mysterious object that sent a big boom over Texas last week has been identified as a meteorite.

A mysterious object that crashed into Texas last week has been identified as a meteorite. The experts believe the object weighed a whopping 1,000 pounds as it hurtled toward Earth last week, before breaking into pieces and landing near McAllen, Texas in the southern part of the state near its border with Mexico.

The meteor traveled at about 27,000 miles per hour, according to NASA Meteor Watch, which posted about the meteorite on Facebook. The angle and speed at which it entered the atmosphere and weather radar imagery helped NASA determine the object was likely a meteorite.

Officials indicate that the space rock broke into several pieces before hitting the ground last Wednesday evening near McAllen, Texas.

“Although meteorites tend to hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds, they slow as they travel through the atmosphere, breaking into small fragments before hitting the ground. Meteorites cool rapidly and generally are not a risk to the public,” NASA said in a statement.

The space agency released a map showing the strewn field, or area where the meteorites likely landed.

Video from a home security camera captured a loud sonic boom and the reaction of the birds around the time the meteor fell.

Texan aircraft and weather observation stations also detected the meteor on the way down.

Near the southernmost point of Texas, Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra said on Twitter Wednesday evening that he “was informed by my Federal partners that Houston Air Traffic Control received reports from two aircrafts that they saw a meteorite west of McAllen.”

…The National Weather Service in Brownsville said their Geostationary Lightning Mapper, which measures lighting as observed from space, detected a signal around 5:23 p.m. with no storms around.

A satellite image shows a flash at the northern county line of Hidalgo County around 5:23 p.m., and a flash in the northwest corner of Starr County at 5:24 p.m.

Interestingly, the impact occurred ten years after February 15, 2013, when an asteroid hit the region near Chelyabinsk, Russia, and caused a spectacular explosion. It might be a good idea to check out the status of planetary defense.

The Chelyabinsk impact was a spark that ignited global conversation in Planetary Defense, and much progress in the field has occurred since then. However, there is still more work to be done, and NASA is actively at the forefront. In addition to building NASA’s NEO {Near Earth Object] Surveyor to find the rest of the population of asteroids that could pose a hazard to Earth, the agency is considering a “rapid response reconnaissance” capability to be able to quickly obtain a more detailed characterization of a hazardous asteroid once it is discovered. NASA is also considering sending out a reconnaissance spacecraft to study an asteroid making a close approach to Earth in 2029.

“A collision of a NEO with Earth is the only natural disaster we now know how humanity could completely prevent,” said NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson. “We must keep searching for what we know is still out there, and we must continue to research and test Planetary Defense technologies and capabilities that could one day protect our planet’s inhabitants from a devastating event.”

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