Cape Cod Fireball Traced to Meter-Wide Asteroid Jupiter Likely Flung

Scientists have pieced together where the bright daytime fireball that streaked over Cape Cod Bay on May 30, 2026, came from. According to Space.com, it was a small, solid asteroid, roughly a meter across, that was probably pushed onto a comet-like path toward Earth by Jupiter's gravity.

The team combined radar, infrasound, dash-cam and security camera data to reconstruct the fall and the object's orbit. The researchers are from Europe and the United States, and Juha Vierinen of the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø led the work.

What happened over Cape Cod?

At 1:06 p.m. local time (18:06 UTC) on May 30, a bolide, the term for a fireball bright enough to see in daylight, was widely witnessed over coastal Massachusetts. Members of the public also reported a sonic boom that rumbled across the northeastern coast of the United States, Space.com reported.

The rock broke apart at a low altitude. The team found that the trail it left in the atmosphere could be tracked down to 20 miles (32 kilometers) up, where the object fragmented with a force equivalent to 500 tons of TNT. Its total impact energy was about 1.1 kilotons of TNT. Only three recorded bolides worldwide in 2025 released more energy, according to the report.

How did researchers track it?

A meteor radar network called SIMONe, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory, did much of the work. MIT, the Arctic University of Norway and the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany jointly developed it.

The radar picks up a "head echo," the signal from the plasma cloud around a meteoroid as it superheats the air. Haystack radio scientist Ryan Volz said such an object must enter the atmosphere within about 62 miles (100 kilometers) of a system like SIMONe for that to work. Only a handful of places in the world meet that condition. "We got pretty lucky to observe this one," Volz told Space.com.

The head echo is usually brief, covering altitudes from about 56 miles (90 kilometers) down to about 44 miles (71 kilometers). It then gives way to a trail echo from the turbulent plasma left behind. Once the rock fragmented, four NEXRAD weather radars, operated jointly by the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Air Force, recorded the debris as chunks fell into Cape Cod Bay.

Infrasound, low-frequency pressure waves that travel long distances, added further evidence. An array in Ontario, Canada, picked them up, as did citizen scientists with build-your-own Raspberry Shake/Boom sensors. Vierinen said six citizen-operated sensors together pinned down the arrival direction. Five other single-station detections and the Ontario array supplied the signal periods used to estimate the energy released.

Where did the rock come from?

Running the trajectory backward, the team found an elongated, comet-like orbit that reached almost as far out as Jupiter. Comets on such orbits are called Jupiter-family comets. The researchers say this object was not a comet. Its depth of penetration before breaking up suggests a solid body, possibly rich in iron.

Team member Marc Fries said the point of the orbit farthest from the sun lies close to Jupiter's orbit. He told Space.com this suggests a close pass by the giant planet may have flung the rock into its recent Earth-crossing path. Previous research has found that Jupiter can pull small asteroids out of the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. Vierinen said the team found no link to any known meteor shower, though the exact history of the object cannot be determined.

Why does it matter?

For most people, the event was a bright flash and a loud boom. For scientists, it was a rare, well-documented sample of a poorly understood population. Meter-sized meteoroids are hard to spot in space from Earth, unlike larger asteroids, and they are not common enough to fall constantly the way pebble-sized shooting stars do. As a result, relatively little is known about them.

The case also shows how different instruments and ordinary people can fill gaps. Weather radars recorded falling debris, and home-built sensors helped locate the event. Volz noted that few places in the world have radar coverage capable of catching the head echoes seen here, so such complete records of a single fall are uncommon.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by Space.com