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A meteor caused a boom heard by Houston-area residents, NASA says

This photo shared on the American Meteor Society website shows an apparent meteor in the Houston-area sky on the afternoon of March 21, 2026.
Mike Hankey via American Meteor Society
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Mike Hankey via American Meteor Society
This photo shared on the American Meteor Society website shows an apparent meteor in the Houston-area sky on the afternoon of March 21, 2026.
Houston-Area Meteor
This photo shared on the American Meteor Society website shows an apparent meteor in the Houston-area sky on the afternoon of March 21, 2026.

If you heard a loud boom in the Houston area late Saturday afternoon, it was a meteor shooting across the sky, according to NASA.

The federal space agency, citing eyewitness accounts reported by members of the American Meteor Society, wrote in a social media post that a “bright fireball” was visible above parts of the region at about 4:40 p.m. Saturday. NASA says it was a meteor that became visible about 50 miles above Stagecoach, a small town northwest of Houston.

The space rock zoomed across the sky to the southeast at 35,000 miles per hour, according to NASA, which says it broke apart about 30 miles above the Bammel area.

“The fragmentation of the meteor – which weighed about a ton with a diameter of 3 feet – created a pressure wave that caused booms heard by some in the area,” NASA wrote in its post.

— NASA Space Alerts (@NASASpaceAlerts) March 22, 2026

Weather radar showed meteorites, which are broken-up pieces of a meteor, between Willowbrook and Northgate Crossing, according to NASA.

A meteorite crashed through the roof of a Houston-area home, according to multiple local news reports.

Copyright 2026 Houston Public Media News 88.7

Adam Zuvanich