A meteor streaked over New York City skyline before disintegrating over New Jersey

NEW YORK —  A meteor streaked over the New York City skyline before disintegrating over New Jersey on Tuesday, according to NASA.

William Cooke, the head of the space agency’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said the fireball was first sighted at an altitude of 51 miles above Manhattan around 11:17 a.m. Tuesday.

The meteor passed over the southern part of Newark, N.J., before disintegrating 31 miles above the town of Mountainside, he said. No meteorites or other fragments of space debris reached Earth’s surface.

The space rock moved at a speed of about 41,000 mph and descended at a relatively steep angle of 44 degrees from vertical, Cooke said.

Its exact trajectory is uncertain, since reports are based only on eyewitness accounts and no camera or satellite data are currently available, he said.

As of Wednesday morning, there had been approximately 40 eyewitness reports filed on the American Meteor Society website, which NASA used to generate its estimates, Cooke said.

Reports of loud booms and shaking were unrelated to the fireball and could be explained by military aircraft in the vicinity around the time of its appearance, he said.

Cooke said a daylight fireball is visible over the New York City area every year or two.

NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office said in a Facebook post that rocks like the one that produced Tuesday’s fireball are about a foot in diameter and can’t remain intact all the way to the ground.