Science
Sound waves reconstruct Alaska fireball path after cameras miss key details
Key Points
When a bright fireball streaked across the Alaska sky last spring, the usual tools scientists rely on to track such events—cameras and satellites—did not provide a detailed picture. But the meteoroid left behind something else: low-frequency sound waves that traveled hundreds of miles and were captured by a dense network of earthquake and volcano-monitoring sensors on the ground.
When a bright fireball streaked across the Alaska sky last spring, the usual tools scientists rely on to track such events—cameras and satellites—did not provide a detailed picture. But the meteoroid left behind something else: low-frequency sound waves that traveled hundreds of miles and were captured by a dense network of earthquake and volcano-monitoring sensors on the ground.