Acoustic Localization of the Boston Meteor Explosion on May 30, 2026

Reconstruction of meteor path on May 30, 2026 from the fireball point to the ocean splash in Cape Cod Bay near Boston, Massachusetts. (Image credit: NASA/ARES)On May 30, 2026, a bolide landed in Cape Cod Bay, approximately 100 kilometers southeast of Boston, Massachusetts. This was the closest meteor that I had ever witnessed near my home. The entry point in the atmosphere was estimated to be 50 kilometers above a latitude of 42 degrees and longitude of -70.5 degrees. The ocean splash point was measured by NASA to have been at latitude 41.87754 degrees and longitude -70.35239 degrees.The bolide’s friction on air resulted in an explosion that produced a fireball and a loud impulsive sound that was heard by numerous people on the East Coast at approximately 18:06 UTC and created a media sensation. The speed of sound is a million times smaller than the speed of light but the bright fireball light was obscured by clouds.The explosion also produced a double-peaked infrasound (low-frequency audio) signal at a frequency of 0.4 Hertz and a pressure pulse with a peak amplitude ranging from about 1 to 50 Pascals that was detected by several Raspberry Boom sensors maintained by educational institutions and hobbyists in the greater Boston region.In a new paper that I co-authored with Steven Africk (accessible here), we analyze these acoustic signals to derive the location of the source and estimate its energy output.A representative time series recorded at the SomervilleL sensor site is shown in the above figure. The bottom panel shows the evolution of the measured pressure for a 24-hour period, with each line representing a 30-minute time window. The segment containing the meteor signal is highlighted. The top panel zooms on the signal which shows a first peak at 18:11:36 UTC, some five minutes after the meteor entered the atmosphere and exploded. It describes 1.5 cycles of a 0.4 Hertz sine wave. The peak-to-peak amplitude of this signal is about 41 Pascals. Similar signals we