How scientists know the New Year's Day boom over Pittsburgh was an exploding meteor
CBC
The new year started with a bang in Pittsburgh.
Astronomer Diane Turnshek was in her kitchen on Saturday morning when she heard a "humongous crash" that rattled all the suncatchers on her window.
She wasn't alone. People all over the city reported hearing the boom.
After ruling out the weather or any kind of local phenomenon, she came to the same conclusion that NASA and the National Weather Service (NWS) would eventually reach — this was a meteor exploding over the Earth.
"A meteor just makes total sense," Turnshek, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann.
When she heard and felt the impact at about 11:26 a.m. ET, Turnshek's mind instantly turned to the stars.
"As an astronomer, my immediate thought is it's something celestial," she said.
But first, she says she had to eliminate all other possibilities. For example, could it have been some kind of local incident? A car accident, a shooting or fireworks, perhaps?
That didn't make sense. A quick online search showed that people as far as 80 kilometres away from her had reported hearing the boom.
"It ruled out any local explosions or train wreck or car accident or anything that had a close source," she said.
What about an earthquake?
"I work at Allegheny Observatory and we have a very sensitive seismograph," she said. "The seismograph didn't show anything whatsoever."
Meanwhile, officials at the NWS and NASA were busy investigating.
Shannon Hefferan, an NWS meteorologist in Pittsburgh, said they were able to rule out lightning using GOES-16, a weather satellite operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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