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"Given how wide-ranging this sound was, a bolide is the most likely culprit," Wood told the Wilson County News.
Bolides are large meteors that explode in the earth's atmosphere.
At night, these appear as fireballs in the sky, Wood explained, but at midday, "it would be much less noticeable."
In February 2013, a large bolide entered earth's atmosphere over Russia as a very visible fireball. "The percussive effect broke windows and caused injuries to people on the ground," Wood said.
What Texans experienced last Wednesday could have been a bolide, according to Wood, although he couldn't say definitively.
"We do get hit all the time [by these]," he said. "They're usually much smaller."
There's "a lot of junk in earth's orbit," the professor said, adding that 1,747 fireball sightings were recorded in the last 30 days.
Meteors, he explained, can enter earth's atmosphere at about 50,000 mph. If it was small, say a few meters in diameter, and exploded very high — 80 to 100 kilometers, or about 60 miles — above the earth, a bolide might have avoided detection.
"All the evidence seems to really point that direction," Wood said.
Comment: The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received over 360 reports about a meteor fireball seen over Connecticut, CT, DE, Delaware, MA, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, MD, ME, NC, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, NH, NJ, NY, PA, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, RI, VA, Vermont and VT on Thursday, July 25th 2019 around 03:04 UT.
This video was uploaded to YouTube by the AMS (www.amsmeteors.org). Credit:Peter R.