It looks like my #infrasound monitor (a #RaspberryBoom) might have caught the sonic boom from a meteor that passed over the #Houston area this afternoon. Time is in UTC here.

The problem is - lots of things create infrasound. This is the loudest thing within that hour, and approximately the right time, but is it a sonic boom?

Sonic booms should have an N-shaped profile, as shown in this figure from their wikipedia article: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:N-wave.png#/media/File:N-wave.png

File:N-wave.png - Wikimedia Commons

That figure shows the whole thing lasting ~.2s.

If we zoom in on my own data, you have to stretch a little bit to believe that it has the same N-shape, but it's not entirely wrong.

The initial peak is ~.1s, but the whole thing takes ~.6s (from 21:42:26.4 to 21:42:27)

It was certainly one of the loudest things today, and a broad-spectrum 'boom'.

(Ignore the really huge thing in the recent lower left, that was me rebooting the RaspberryBoom because I thought it was offline 😬)

The big thing in the quiet nighttime hours is a helicopter - those have a very distinct signature.

Helicopters are easy to spot because you can *see* the infrasound doppler shift as they go past your location.

@grajohnt
Sue has become very good at distinguishing the local police helicopter and the air ambulance helicopter just by their sound as they become audible.

Seeing the hospital helipad light up is a good confirmation of an incoming air ambulance.

@Maker_of_Things @grajohnt

Random thing the other day - I heard the air ambulance, looked up and yes, it was flying low over our house, away from the hospital. But then I looked at the hospital, and the air ambulance was on the helipad. But I'm sure it was an air ambulance I saw in the sky. I didn't know there were two....

@suearcher There's a lot of involuntary teleporting going on these days!

@Maker_of_Things @grajohnt

@amenonsen @Maker_of_Things @grajohnt

Teleporting would be an even easier way to transport patients!

@suearcher @Maker_of_Things you would have been a great sonar operator on submarines... 😁

@grajohnt @Maker_of_Things

As long as the submarine was hunting two specific helicopters....